


r^ 



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/eaulciy's 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



E\}t ^tuUents' <Serirs of lEttQlisi) Classics- 

Coleridge's Ancient Mariner 30 cts. 

A Ballad Book 54 .. 

Edited by Katharine Lee Bates, Wellesley College. 

Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum 30 .. 

Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration 30 .. 

Milton, Lyrics 35 .. 

Edited by Louise Manning Hodgkins. 

Introduction to the Writings of John Ruskin 54 . . 

Macaulay's Essay on Lord Clive 42 .. 

Edited by Vida D. Scudder, Wellesley College. 

George Eliot's Silas Marner . . 42 .. 

Scott's Marmion 42 .. 

Edited by Mary Harriott Norris, Instructor, New York. 
Sir Roger de Coverley Papers from The Spectator . . . . 42 .. 

Edited by A. S. Roe, Worcester, Mass. 
Macaulay's Second Essay on the Earl of Chatham . . 42 .. 

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Johnson's History of Rasselas 42 .. 

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Joan of Arc and Other Selections from De Quincey , 42 .. 

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Carlyle's The Diamond Necklace 42 .. 

Edited by W. F. Mozier, High School, Ottawa, 111. 
Macaulay's Essays on Milton and Addison 42 .. 

Edited by James Chalmers, Ohio State University. 
Lays of Ancient Rome [JVearly ready'] 

Edited by Viola V. Price, Southwest Kansas College. 
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SIxje ^tttxljeuts' Mcxizs ocT ^nQli&U missies. 



MACAULAY'S ESSAYS 



ON 



MILTON AND ADDISON. 



EDITED BY 



JAMES CHALMERS, Ph.D., LLD., 

Associate Professor of English Literature in 
Ohio State University. 




LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN. 

BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. 



/ 



.Ma 



Copyright, 1893, 

BY 

Lbach, Shewell, & Sanborn. 



TTPOGKAPHT and ELECTKOTTPINd BT 

C. J. Petebs & Son, Boston. 



Bbkwiok & Smith, Peintebs, Bostok. 



PREFACE. 



Owing to the fact that two well-edited books of 
Macaulay's Essays have already appeared in this series, 
each containing information and suggestions common to 
all of his essays, it does not seem necessary that any 
part of that same matter should be repeated in this vol- 
ume. A further reason for brevity in introduction is 
that the two essays here chosen swell the size of the 
book beyond that of most of the other numbers of 
the series. 

There is one fact in particular to which the editor 
wishes to give the place of emphasis : The essays com- 

PKISING THIS VOLUME ARE EMINENTLY LITERARY. They 

are the most distinctively literary of Macaulay's Essays, 
and are therefore best adapted to the purpose for which 
they have been chosen. The essays of Macaulay pre- 
ceding in the series — " Chatham" and " Clive " — are his- 
torical and biographical, and yet are of unusual literary 
value. But the teacher of English literature will recog- 
nize at once the immense gains to the young student of 
a comparative study of Milton and Addison, the two 
writers who stand highest in their respective depart- 

m 



iv MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

ments of literature — especially when that study is 
directed by Macaulay. There are probably but two other 
books on the list of entrance requirements in English 
literature, as adopted by the Association of New Eng- 
land Colleges, that are as fruitful of wholesome results 
to the student as is a critical comparative study of 
Macaulay's Essaj^s on Milton and Addison. 

In this comparative study of the two essays the in- 
structor will not neglect to bring out, incidentally, the 
differences, particularly in style, due to the fact that 
the one was written in Macaulay's youth, the other in 
his maturity. 

The main features of the present volume are : — 

1. A carefully selected text, the result of a compari- 
son, word by word, of the best English edition, published 
during Macaulay's lifetime, and with his correction and 
revision ; and four other standard editions of more recent 
publication. 

2. A carefully selected consensus of opinion concern- 
ing Macaulay as an essayist. 

3. A selected list of the best critical and biographical 
references on Macaulay. 

4. One selection from Macaulay's poems, — " The Bat- 
tle of Ivry." 

A classified table of all of Macaulay's Essays, histori- 
cal, biographical, literary, critical, etc., was prepared for 
this edition, but the limits of the book precluded its 
insertion. 

I quite agree with Professor Scott of the University 
of INIichigan, in his preface to the best-edited school- 



PREFA CE. V 

edition of Rasselas yet published, that among progres- 
sive teachers of English literature there has been a rapid 
shrinkage in the value of miscellaneous annotation. He 
reduces his notes to very small compass, which, he says, 
" may be taken as representing one stage in the process 
of eliminating waste material." This waste material is 
entirely eliminated in the present volume. 

James Chalmers. 
Ohio State University. Columbus, 0., April, 1893. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Pkeface iii 

Selected References on Macaulay vii 

A Consensus of Opinion and Cbiticism xi 

The Battle of Ivky 1 

Milton 6 

Life and Wbitings of Addison 78 



CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL 
REFERENCES. 



Adams's (Charles Kendall) Representative British Urations, 3. 
American Journal of Education, 28. 
American Whig Review, 1, 9. 
Arnold's (Matthew) Mixed Essays. 
Bagehot's Estimate of Some Englishmen and Scotchmen. 
Baldwin's Introduction to English Literature (prose). 
Bayne's Essays in Biography and Criticism, 2. 
Belgravia, 29. 

Bentlet's Miscellany, 31, 37. 

Blackwood's Magazine, 52, 75, 80, 85, 86, 88, 119, 120. 
British and Foreign Review, 15. 
British Quarterly Review, 23, 31. 
Canadian Monthly, 13. 

Canning's (Albert S. G.) Lord Macaulay, Essayist and Histo- 
rian. 

Chambers' Journal, 34. 
Christian Examiner, 54. 
Christian Observer, 76. 
Christian Review, 5, 26. 
Cornhill Magazine, 1, 33, 42. 
Democratic Review, 26. 
Dobson's Handbook of English Literature. 
Dublin University Magazine, 51, 57, 58. 
ix 



X MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Eclectic Magazine, 7, 13, 17, 25, 33, 35, 49, 50, 51, 52, 68, 
87, 111. 

Eclectic Keview, 77, 79. 

Edinburgh Review, 100, 143. 

Emerson's English Traits. 

Exeter Hall Lectures, 17. 

Fortnightly Review, 25. 

Francis' Orators of the Age. 

Eraser's Magazine, 1, 27, 33, 40, 66, 62, 93, 103. 

Galaxy, 22. 

Gentleman's Magazine (New Series), 5. 

Gladstone's Gleanings of Past Years, 2. 

Grant's Last Century of English Literature. 

Griswold's Home Life of Great Authors. 

Harper's Monthly Magazine, 53, 58. 

Horne's a New Spirit of the Age. 

International Review, 3. 

Irish Quarterly Review, 7. 

Jones's Lord Macaulay : His Life, His Writings. 

Knickerbocker Magazine, 33. 

Lakeside Monthly, 8. 

Lancaster's Essays and Reviews. 

Leisure Hour, 5, 9, 26. 

Littell's Living Age, 8, 15, 21, 32, 37, 39, 40, 43, 51, 56, 62, 
64, 65, 67, 75, 86, 91, 97, 107, 122, 129, 130, 149, 172, 176, 181. 

London Quarterly Review, 14. 

McCarthy's Short History of Our Own Times. 

Macmillan's Magazine, 1, 7, 22, 34, 52. 

Martineau's (Harriet) Biographical Sketches. 

Mason's Personal Traits of British Authors. 

Mathews' Hours with Men and Books. 

Maull and Polyblank's Macaulay, the Historian, Statesman, 
and Essayist. 

Methodist Quarterly Review, 37. 

Milman's (Dean) Memoir of Lord Macaulay. 



CRITICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES, xi 

MiNTo's Manual of English Prose Literatuiv. 

Month, 27. 

Monthly Review, 159, 161. 

Morison's Macaulay (English Men-of- Letters Series). 

Morley's English Literature. 

Morrill's Self-Consciousness of Noted Persons. 

Nation, 22, 36. 

National Quarterly Review, 04. 

New Englander, 7. 

New Quarterly Review, 9. 

New York Quarterly, 3. 

Nicoll's Landmarks of English Literature. 

North American Review, 93. 

North British Review, 25, 33. 

Once a Week, 2. 

Pebody's Authors at Work. 

People's Journal, 7. 

Poe's (E. a.) Criticism of Macaulay (The Literati, 3). 

Princeton Review, 12. 

Putnam's Prose Masterpieces, 2. 

Quarterly Review, 71, 124, 142. 

Reed's English Literature. 

Russell's The Book of Authors. 

St. James's Magazine, 2. 

Saturday- Review, 54, 60. 

Scottish Review, 2. 

Sharpe's London Magazine, 20. 

Shepard's Earlier Victorian Poets. 

Shepard's Enchiridion of Criticism. 

Southern Literary Messenger, 14, 22, 29, 30. 

Southern Quarterly Review, 4. 

Stephen's History of English Thought. 

Stephen's Hours in a Library (Third Series). 

Stirling's Jerrold, Tennyson, and Macaulay. 

Stoddard's The Greville Memoirs. 



xu MACAU LAY'S ESSAYS. 

Sainton's Studies in Engiisli Literature. 
Taine's English Literature. 
Temple Bak, 47, 79, 86. 
Trevelyan's Macaulay. 
Tuckerman's Characteristics of Literature. 
Welsh's English Literature and Language. 
Westminster Review, 39, 100, 107. 
Whipple's Essays and Reviews, 1. 
Wilson's Essay Critical and Imaginative, 7. 
Yonge's Three Centuries of English Literature. 



A CONSENSUS OF OPINION AND 
CRITICISM. 



With the Essay on INIilton began Macaulay's literary career, 
and, brilliant as the career was, it had few points more bril- 
liant than its beginning. — Matthew Arnold. 

The effect on the author's reputation [of the publication of 
the Essay on Milton] was instantaneous. Like Lord Byron, 
he awoke one morning and found himself famous. The 
beauties of the work were sucli as all men could recognize, 
and its very faults pleased. . . . The family breakfast-table in 
Bloomsbury was covered with cards of invitation to dinner from 
eveiy quarter of London. ... A warm admirer of Robert 
Hall, Macaulay heard with pride how the great preacher, then 
well-nigh worn out with that long disease, his life, was dis- 
covered lying on the floor, employed in learning by aid of 
grammar and dictionary enough Italian to enable him to 
verify the parallel between Milton and Dante. But the com- 
pliment that, of all others, came most nearly home, — the only 
commendation of his literary talent which even in the inner- 
most domestic circle he was ever known to repeat, — was the 
sentence with which Jeffi'ey acknowledged the receipt of his 
manuscript : " The more I think, the less I can conceive where 
you picked up that style." — G. O. Tkevelyan. 



xiv MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

The living, leafy, ^vide-stretching boughs into which the 
writer's art transforms the mere dead and fragmentary fallen 
twigs of truth are wonderful, and we are kept in continual 
admiration of the constant unexceptionable writing, the constant 
interesting pictures, the constant luminous good sense, and 
the constant appearance of reseai'ch. — James Hutchison 
Stirling. 

As a poet, at a time when it was supposed that nothing new 
could be invented, he sti'uck out a style, the enchantment of 
which is felt by all ages and all conditions alike ; which has no 
prototype in ancient, no parallel in modern, times ; which 
unites the simplicity of our ancient ballads with the rich 
images and stirring dialogue of the epic, often sweetly de- 
scending to an idyllic character, reminding us of the happier 
passages of Theocritus. — The London Times. 

Macaulay's great quality is that of being one of the best 
stoi*y-tellers that ever lived ; and if we limit the competition 
to his only proper rivals — the historians — he may be pro- 
nounced the best story-teller. If any one thinks these super- 
latives misplaced, let him mention the historical writers whom 
he would put on a level with or above Macaulay — always 
remembering that the comparison is limited to this particular 
point : the art of telling a story with such interest and vivacity 
that readers have no wish but to read on. ... In his own line 
he had no rival. And let no one undervalue that line. He 
kindled a fervent human interest in past and real events, 
which novelists kindle in fictitious events. He wrote of the 
seventeenth century with the same vivid sense of present 
reality which Balzac and Thackeray had when they wrote of 
the nineteenth century, which was before their eyes. And this 
was the peculiarity which fascinated contemporaries, and made 
them so lavish of praise and admiration. They felt, and very 



A CONSENSUS OF OPINION. xv 

justly, that history had never been so written before. It was 
a quality which all classes, of all degrees of culture, could 
almost equally appreciate. — J. Cottek Mokison. 

The first and strongest impression we derive from a consid- 
eration of Macaulay's life and writings is that of the robust 
and masculine qualities of his intellect and character. ... A 
prominent cause of Macaulay's popularity is to be found in the 
definiteness of his mind. He always aspired to present his 
matter in such a form as to exclude the possibility of doubt, 
either in his statement or argument. ... As an artist, 
Macaulay is greater in his essays than in his "History of 
England." Each of his essays is a unit. The results of an- 
alysis are diifused through the veins of narration, and details 
are strictly subordinated to leading conceptions. . . . They 
rank among the finest artistic products of the century. They 
partake of the imperfections of his thinking, and the limita- 
tions of his character, but they are still perfect of their kind. 
. . . The amount of knowledge each of them includes can 
only be estimated by those who have patiently I'ead the many 
volumes they so brilliantly condense. In style, they show a 
mastery of English which has been attained by no other Eng- 
lish author who did not possess a creative imagination. The 
ai't of the writer is shown as much in his deliberate choice of 
common and colloquial phrases as in those splendid passages 
in which he almost seems to exhaust the resoui'ces of the Eng- 
lish tongue. As a narrator, in his own province, it would be 
difl&cult to name his equal among English writers ; to his 
narrative, all his talents and accomplishments combined to 
lend fascination ; and in it he exhibited the understanding 
of Hallam, and the knowledge of Mackintosh, joined to the 
picturesqueness of Southey, and the wit of Pope. — E. P. 
Whipple. 



xvi MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

The Nimrod of literary criticism was Thomas B. Macaulay, 
poet, essayist, histoi-ian, legislator, jurist, orator. When three 
years old, books were his companions. At four he replied to a 
condolence, "Thank you, madam, the agony is abated." At 
seven, left for a week with Hannah INIore, he stood on a chair 
and preached sermons to 2}eople brought in from the fields. 
At eight, with the whole of "Marmion" in his head, he began 
to imitate Scott's verse. At fourteen he ajjpeared in print. 
To retentive memory was added a quick wit. . . . From this 
power of realizing the past proceeds his skill in the delinea- 
tion of character. Hence, his energetic, impassioned tone. 
From his vast and well-digested reading proceed the abound- 
ing mass and weight of his style, — a I'iver of ideas and facts, 
urged forward by the internal heat. He is so opulent tliat he 
makes criticism almost a creative art, and the author or woi'k 
reviewed becomes a hint for the construction of picturesque 
dissertations, magnificent comparisons, and glowing dialectic. 
The chai-aeteristics of his style are opulence of illustration 
and adornment, antithesis of ideas, regular sequence of thought, 
harmonious construction, and incomparable lucidity. Jefi'rey, 
in acknowledging the manuscript of "Milton" said, "The 
more I think, the less I can conceive where you picked up that 
style." It was the prevalent opinion of literary friends, that 
he wrote rapidly, and made few corrections, so spontaneous 
seemed his manner. On the contrary, he was minutely stu- 
dious of every sentence ; would often rewrite paragraphs and 
chapters to improve the arrangement or expression. Again 
would he correct, and his manuscripts were covered with 
erasures. He was equally attentive to proof-sheets. "He 
could not rest until the lines Avere level to a hair's breadth, 
and the punctuation correct to a comma; until every pai'a- 
graph concluded with a telling sentence, and every sentence 
liowed like running water." Excellence is not matured in a 
day. — Alfred II. Welsh. 



A CONSENSUS OF OPINION. xvii 

Lord Macaulay lived a life of no more than sixty years 
and three months. Bnt it was an extraordinary full life of 
sustained exertion — a high table-land without depressions. 
If in its outer aspect there be anything wearisome, it is only 
the wearisomeness of reiterated splendor, and of success so 
uniform as to be almost monotonous. He speaks of himself 
as idle ; but his idleness was more active, and carried with it 
hour by hour a greater expenditure of brain-power, than what 
most men regard as tlieir serious employments. He miglit 
well have been, in his mental career, the spoiled child of for- 
tune ; for all he tried succeeded, all he touched turned into 
gems and gold. In a hapjjy childhood he evinced extreme 
precocity. His academical career gave sufficient, though not 
redundant, promise of after celebrity. The new golden age 
he imparted to the Edinburgh Review, and his first and most 
important, if not best. Parliamentary speeches in the grand 
crisis of the first Reform Bill, achieved for him, years before 
he had reached the middle point of life, what may justly be 
termed an immense distinction. For a century and more, per- 
haps no man in England, with the exception of Mr. Pitt and 
Lord Byron, had attained at thirty-two the fame of Macaulay. 
His Parliamentary success and his literary eminence were each 
of them enough, as they stood at this date, to intoxicate any 
brain and heart of a meaner order. But to these were added 
in his case an amount and quality of social attentions such as 
invariably partake of adulation and idolatry; such as, per- 
haps, the high circles of London never before or since have 
lavished on a man whose claims lay only in himself, and not 
in his descent, his rank, or his possessions. . . . He was, in- 
deed, prosperous and brilliant ; a prodigy, a meteor, almost a 
portent, in literary history. But his course was laborious, 
trutlif ul, simple, independent, noble ; and all these in an emi- 
nent dejrree. — William Ewart Gladstone. 



xviii MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Human progress consists in a continual increase in tlie num- 
ber of tliose who, ceasing to live by the animal life alone and 
to feel the pleasures of sense only, come to participate in the 
intellectual life also, and to find enjoyment in the things of the 
mind. The enjoyment is not at first very discriminating. 
Rhetoric, brilliant writing, gives to such persons pleasui'e for 
its own sake ; but it gives them pleasure, still more, when it is 
employed in commendation of a view of life which is on the 
wliole theirs, and of men and causes with which they are 
naturally in sympathy. The immense poiDularity of Macaulay 
is due to his being pre-eminently fitted to give jileasure to all 
who are beginning to feel enjoyment in the things of the 
mind. It is said that the traveller in Australia, visiting one 
settler's hut after another, finds again and again that the 
settlei-'s thii'd book, after the Bible and Shakespeai-e, is some 
work by Macaulay. Nothing can be more natural. The Bible 
and Shakespeare may be said to be imposed u])on an English- 
man as objects of his admiration ; but as soon as the common 
Englishman, desiring culture, begins to choose for himself, he 
chooses Macaulay. Macaulay's view of things is, on the 
whole, the vieAV of them which he feels to be his own also ; 
the persons and causes praised are those which he himself is 
disposed to admire ; the persons and causes blamed are those 
with which he himself is out of symjiathy ; and the rhetoric 
employed to j^raise or to blame tliem is animating and excel- 
lent. Macaulay is thus a great civilizer. In hundreds of men 
he hits their nascent taste for the things of the mind, possesses 
himself of it, and stimulates it, draws it powerfully forth and 
confirms it. — - Matthew Arnold. 

Macaulay is a model of style — of style not merely as a 
kind of literary luxury, but of style in its practical aspect. 
When I say he is a model of style, I do not mean that it is 



A CONSENSUS OF OPINION. xix 

wise in any writer to copy Macaulay's style — to try to write 
something that might be mistaken for Macaulay's Avriting. So 
to do is not to follow in the steps of a great writer, but merely 
to imitate his outward manner. So to do is not the part of a 
disciple, but the part of an ape. But every one who wishes to 
write clear and pure English will do well to become, not 
Macaulay's ape, but Macaulay's disciple. Every writer of 
English will do well not only to study Macaulay's wi'itings, 
but to bear them in his mind, and very often to ask himself not 
whether his writing is like Macaulay's writing, but whether 
his writing is such as Macaulay would have approved. 

I know at least what my own experience is. It is for others 
to judge whether I have leai'ned of Macaulay the art of being 
clear ; I at least learned of Macaulay the duty of trying to be 
clear. And I learned that in order to be clear there were two 
main rules to be followed. I learned from Macaulay that if 
I wished to be understood by others, or indeed by myself, I 
must avoid, not always long sentences, — for long sentences 
may often be perfectly clear, — but involved, complicated, par- 
enthetical sentences. I leai'ned that I must avoid sentences 
crowded with relatives and participles ; sentences in which 
things are not so much directly stated as implied in some dark 
and puzzling fashion. I learned, also, never to be afraid of 
using the same word or name over and over again, if b^ 
that means anything could be added to clearness or foi'ce. 
Macaulay never goes on, like some writers, talking about 
"the former" and "the latter," "he, she, it, they," through 
clause after clause, while his reader has to look back to see 
which of several persons it is that is so darkly referred to. 
No doubt a pronoun, like any other word, may often be 
repeated with advantage, if it is perfectly clear who is meant 
by the noun. And with INIacaulay's pronouns it is always per- 
fectly clear who is meant by them. 



XX macaulay's essays. 

Then as to his choice of words. Here and there I myself 
miglit perhajDS think that a Romance word might well be 
changed for a Teutonic word. Certainly no one can charge 
Macaulay with what is called pedantry or ijurisra, in a Teutonic 
direction, or in any direction. Still, where I might wish to 
change one word in IMacaulay, I might wish to change ten or 
a hundred in most other writers. Macaulay never uses a word 
which, whatever might be its origin, had not really taken I'oot 
in the language. He has no vulgarisms, no newfangled or 
affected expressions. No man was ever so clear from the vice 
of thrusting in foreign words into an English sentence. 

In short, Macaulay never allows himself for a moment to be 
careless, vulgar, or slijishod. Every person and every thing 
is called by the right name, and no other. And because he 
did all this, because he wrote such clear and well-chosen Eng- 
lish that the printer's reader himself never had to I'ead his 
sentences twice over, therefore men who cannot write as he 
could, talk glibly of his " mannerism," and so forth. Every- 
body, I suppose, must have some manner. Lord Macaulay 
had a good manner, and not a bad one, and therefore he is 
found fault with. 

Without, therefore, recommending any one to imitate Macau- 
lay's manner, or the manner of any one, I do say that in all 
this Macaulay has left to every writer of English an example 
which every writer of English will do well to follow. The 
care which Macaulay took to write, before all things, good and 
clear English may be followed by writers who make no 
attempt to imitate his style, and Avho may be led by nature to 
some quite different style of their own. Many styles which 
are quite unlike one another may all be equally good ; but no 
style can be good which does not use pure and straightfor- 
ward English. No style can be good where the reader has to 
read a sentence twice over to find out its meaning. In these 



A CONSENSUS OF OPINION. xxi 

ways the writings of IMacaiilay may be a direct model to 
writers and speakers whose natural taste, whose subject, or 
whose audience may lead them to a style quite unlike his. In 
every language, and in every kind of writing, purity of 
speech and clearness of expression must be the first virtues 
of all. — E. A. Freeman. 



THE BATTLE CRY OF IVRY. 

A SONG OF THE HUGUENOTS. 

{Published 1824.) 



Now glory to the Lord of Hosts, from whom all glories 

are! 
And glory to our Sovereign Liege, King Henry of 

Navarre ! 
Now let there be the merry sound of music and of dance, 
Through thy corn-fields green, and sunny vines, oh 

pleasant land of France ! 
And thou, Rochelle, our own Rochelle, proud city of the 5 

waters, 
Again let rapture light the eyes of all thy mourning 

daughters. 
As thou wert constant in our ills, be joyous in our joy. 
For cold, and stiff, and still are. they who wrought thy 

walls annoy. 
Hurrah ! hurrah ! a single field hath turned the chance 

of war, 
Hurrah ! hurrah ! for Ivry, and Henry of Navarre. 10 

1 



2 MA CAUL AY'S ESSAYS. 

Oh! how our hearts were beating, when, at the dawn of 

day, 
We saw the army of the League drawn out in long 

array ; 
With all its priest-led citizens, and all its rebel peers. 
And Appeuzel's stout infantry, and Egmont's Flemish 

spears. 
5 There rode the brood of false Lorraine, the curses of our 

land ; 
And dark Mayenne was in the midst, a truncheon in his 

hand: 
And as we looked on them, we thought of Seine's em- 
purpled flood. 
And good Coligni's hoary hair all dabbled with his blood; 
And we cried unto the living God, who rules the fate of 

war, 
10 To fight for his own holy name, and Henry of Navarre. 

The King is come to marshal us, in all his armor drest. 
And he has bound a snow-white plume upon his gallant 

crest. 
He looked upon his people, and a tear was in his eye ; 
He looked upon the traitors, and his glance was stern 

and high. 
15 Right graciously he smiled on us, as rolled from wing 

to wing, 
Down all our line a deafening shout, "God save our 

Lord the King." 
" And if my standard-bearer fall, as fall full well he 

may, 



THE BATTLE CRY OF IVRY. 3 

For never saw I promise yet of such a bloody fray, 
Press where ye see my white plume shine, amidst the 

ranks of war, 
And be your orifiamme to-day the helmet of Navarre." 

Hurrah ! the foes are moving. Hark to the mingled din. 
Of fife, and steed, and trump, and drum, and roaring 5 

culverin. 
The fiery Duke is pricking fast across Saint Andre's 

plain. 
With all the hireling chivalry of Guelders and Almayne. 
Now by the lips of those ye love, fair gentlemen of 

France, 
Charge for the golden lilies, — upon them with the 

lance. 
A thousand spurs are striking deep, a thousand spears lo 

in rest, 
A thousand knights are pressing close behind the snow- 
white crest ; 
And in they burst, and on they rushed, while, like a 

guiding star. 
Amidst the thickest carnage blazed the helmet of 

Navarre. 

Now, God be praised, the day is ours. Mayenne hath 

turned his rein. 
D'Aumale hath cried for quarter. The Flemish count 15 

is slain. 
Their ranks are breaking like thin clouds before a Biscay 

gale; 



4 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

The field is heaped with bleeding steeds, and flags, and 

cloven mail. 
And then we thought on vengeance, and, all along our 

van, 
"Remember Saint Bartholomew," was passed from man 

to man. 

But out spake gentle Henry, " No Frenchman is my 

foe : 
5 Down, down with every foreigner, but let your brethren 

go." 
Oh ! was there ever such a knight, in friendship or in 

war, 
As our Sovereign Lord, King Henry, the soldier of 

Navarre ? 

Right well fought all the Frenchmen who fought for 

France to-day ; 
And many a lordly banner God gave them for a prey. 
10 But we of the religion have borne us best in fight ; 
And the good Lord of Rosny hath ta'en the cornet 

white. 
Our own true Maximilian the cornet white hath ta'en. 
The cornet white, with crosses black, the flag of false 

Lorraine. 
Up with it high ; unfurl it wide ; that all the host may 

know 
15 How God hath humbled the proud house which wrought 

his church such woe. 



THE BATTLE CRY OF IVRY. 5 

Then on the ground, while trumpets sound their loudest 

point of war, 
Fling the red shreds, a footcloth meet for Henry of 

Navarre. 

Ho ! maidens of Vienna ; ho ! matrons of Lucerne ; 
Weep, weep, and rend your hair for those who never 

shall return. 
Ho ! Philip, send, for charity, thy Mexican pistoles, 5 

That Antwerp monks may sing a mass for thy poor 

spearmen's souls. 
Ho ! gallant nobles of the League, look that your arms 

be bright ; 
Ho ! burghers of Saint Genevieve, keep watch and ward 

to-night. 
For our God hath crushed the tyrant, our God hath raised 

the slave, 
And mocked the counsel of the wise, and the valor of 10 

the brave. 
Then glory to his holy name, from whom all glories are ; 
And glory to our Sovereign Lord, King Henry of 

Navarre. 



MILTON.^ 

{Ed'mbvrgh Review, August, 1825.) 



Towards the close of the year 1823, Mr. Lemon, 
deputy-keeper of the state papers, in the course of his 
researches among the presses of his office, met with a 
large Latin manuscript. With it were found corrected 

5 copies of the foreign despatches written by Milton while 
he filled the office of secretary, and several papers relat- 
ing to the Popish Trials and the Rye-house Plot, The 
whole was wrapped up in an envelope, superscribed, To 
Mr. Ski7i7ier, Merchant. On examination the large manu- 

10 script proved to be the long-lost Essay on the Doctrines 
of Christianity, which, according to Wood and Toland, 
Milton finished after tlie Restoration, and deposited with 
Cyriac Skinner. Skinner, it is well known, held the 
same political opinions with his illustrious friend. It is 

15 therefore probable, as Mr. Lemon conjectures, that he 

- may have fallen under the suspicions of the government 

1 Joannis Milton, Anf/li, deDoctrina Christiana libri duo posthvmi. 
A Treatise on Christian Doctrine, compiled from the Holy Scriptures 
alone. By John Milton, translated from the original by Charles R. 
Sumuer, M.A., etc., 1825. 

6 



MILTON. 7 

during that persecution of the Whigs which followed 
the dissolution of the Oxford Parliament ; and that, in 
consequence of a general seizure of his papers, this 
work may have been brought to the office in which it 
has been found. But whatever the adventures of the 5 
manuscript may have been, no doubt can exist that it is 
a genuine relic of the great poet. 

Mr. Sumner, who was commanded by his majesty to 
edit and translate the treatise, has acquitted himself of 
his task in a manner honorable to his talents and to his 10 
character. His version is not, indeed, very easy or ele- 
gant; but it is entitled to the praise of clearness and 
fidelity. His notes abound with interesting quotations, 
and have the rare merit of really elucidating the text. 
The preface is evidently the work of a sensible and 15 
candid man, firm in his own religious opinions, and 
tolerant towards those of others. 

The book itself will not add much to the fame of 
Milton. It is, like all his Latin works, well written, 
though not exactly in the style of the prize essays of 20 
Oxford and Cambridge. There is no elaborate imitation 
of classical antiquity, no scrupulous purity, none of the 
ceremonial cleanness which characterizes the diction of 
our academical Pharisees. The author does not attempt 
to polish and brighten his composition into the Cicero- 25 
nian gloss and brilliancy. He does not, in short, sacri- 
fice sense and spirit to pedantic refinements. The nature 
of his subject compelled him to use many words — 

" That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp." 



8 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

But he writes with as much ease and freedom as if Latin 
were his mother tongue ; and, where he is least happy, 
his failure seems to arise from the carelessness of a 
native, not from the ignorance of a foreigner. We may 

5 apply to him what Denham with great felicity says of 
Cowley. He wears the garb, but not the clothes, of the 
ancients. 

Throughout the volume are discernible the traces of a 
powerful and independent mind, emancipated from the 

10 influence of authority, and devoted to the search of truth. 
Milton professes to form his system from the Bible 
alone ; and his digest of scriptural texts is certainly 
among the best that have appeared. But he is not 
always so happy in his inferences as in his citations. 

15 Some of the heterodox doctrines which he avows seem 
to have excited considerable amazement, particularly his 
Arianism, and his theory on the subject of polygamy. 
Yet we can scarcely conceive that any person could have 
read the " Paradise Lost " without suspecting him of the 

20 former ; nor do we think that any reader, acquainted 
with the history of his life, ought to be much startled at 
the latter. The opinions which he has expressed respect- 
ing the nature of the Deity, the eternity of matter, and 
the observance of the Sabbath, might, we think, have 

25 caused more just surprise. 

But we will not go into the discussion of these points. 
The book, were it far more orthodox or far more hereti- 
cal than it is, would not much edify or corrupt the pres- 
ent generation. The men of our time are not to be 
converted or perverted by quartos. A few more days 



MILTON. 9 

and this essay will follow the " Defensio Populi " to the 
dust and silence of the upper shelf. The name of its 
author, and the remarkable circumstances attending its 
publication, will secure to it a certain degree of atten- 
tion. For a month or two it will occupy a few minutes 5 
of chat in every drawing-room, and a few columns in 
every magazine ; and it will then, to borrow the elegant 
language of the playbills, be withdrawn to make room 
for the forthcoming novelties. 

We wish, however, to avail ourselves of the interest, lO 
transient as it may be, which this work has excited. 
The dexterous Capuchins never choose to preach on the 
life and miracles of a saint till they have awakened the 
devotional feelings of their auditors by exhibiting some 
relic of him, — a thread of his garment, a lock of his hair, 15 
or a drop of his blood. On the same principle, we 
intend to take advantage of the late interesting discov- 
ery, and, while this memorial of a great and good man 
is still in the hands of all, to say something of his moral 
and intellectual qualities. Nor, we are convinced, will 20 
the severest of our readers blame us if, on an occasion 
like the present, we turn for a short time from the topics 
of the day, to commemorate, in all love and reverence, 
the genius and virtues of John Milton, the poet, the 
statesman, the philosopher, the glory of English litera- 25 
ture, the champion and the martyr of English liberty. 

It is by his poetry that Milton is best known ; and it 
is of his poetry that we wish first to speak. By the 
general suffrage of the civilized world, his place has 
been assigned among the greatest masters of the art. 



10 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

His detractors, however, though outvoted, have not been 
silenced. There are many critics, and some of great 
name, who contrive in the same breath to extol the 
poems and to decry the poet. The works they acknowl- 
5 edge, considered in themselves, may be classed among 
the noblest productions of the human mind. But they 
will not allow the author to rank with those great men, 
who, born in the infancy of civilization, supplied by 
their own powers the want of instruction ; and, though 

10 destitute of models themselves, bequeathed to posterity 
models which defy imitation. Milton, it is said, inherited 
what his predecessors created : he lived in an enlightened 
age ; he received a finished education ; and we must, 
therefore, if we would form a just estimate of his powers, 

15 make large deductions in consideration of these advan- 
tages. 

We venture to say, on the contrary, paradoxical as the 
remark may appear, that no poet has ever had to strug- 
gle with more unfavorable circumstances tlian Milton. 

20 He doubted, as he has himself owned, whether he had 
not been born ''an age too late." For this notion John- 
son has thought fit to make him the butt of much clumsy 
ridicule. The poet, Ave believe, understood the nature of 
his art better than the critic. He knew that liis poeti- 

25 cal genius derived no advantage from the civilization 
which surrounded him, or from the learning which he 
had acquired ; and he looked back with something like 
regret to the ruder age of simple words and vivid im- 
pressions. 

We think that as civilization advances, poetry almost 



MILTON. 11 

necessarily declines. Therefore, though we fervently 
admire those great works of imagination which have 
appeared in dark ages, we do not admire them the more 
because they have appeared in dark ages. On the con- 
trary, we hold that the most wonderful and splendid 5 
proof of genius is a great poem produced in a civilized 
age. We cannot understand why those who believe in 
that most orthodox article of literary faith, that the 
earliest poets are generally the best, should wonder at 
the rule as if it were the exception. Surely, the uni- 10 
formity of the phenomenon indicates a corresponding 
uniformity in the cause. 

The fact is, that common observers reason from the 
progress of the experimental sciences to that of the imi- 
tative arts. The improvement of the former is gradual 15 
and slow. Ages are spent in collecting materials, ages 
more in separating and combining them. Even when a 
system has been formed, there is still something to add, 
to alter, or to reject. Every generation enjoys the use 
of a vast hoard bequeathed to it by antiquity, and trans- 20 
mits that hoard, augmented by fresh acquisitions, to 
future ages. In these pursuits, therefore, the first specu- 
lators lie under great disadvantages, and, even when they 
fail, are entitled to praise. Their pupils, with far in- 
ferior intellectual powers, speedily surpass them in actual 25 
attainments. Every girl who has read Mrs. Marcet's 
little Dialogues on Political Economy could teach Mon- 
tague or Walpole many lessons in finance. Any intelli- 
gent man may now, by resolutely applying himself for 
a few years to mathematics, learn more than the great 



12 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Newton knew after half a century of study and medita- 
tion. 

But it is not thus with music, with painting, or with 
sculpture. Still less is it thus Avith poetry. The 

5 progress of refinement rarely supplies these arts with 
better objects of imitation. It may indeed improve the 
instruments which are necessary to the mechanical opera- 
tions of the musician, the sculptor, and the painter. 
But language, the machine of the poet, is best fitted for 

10 his purpose in its rudest state. Nations, like individ- 
uals, first perceive and then abstract. They advance 
from particular images to general terms. Hence the 
vocabulary of an enlightened society is philosophical, 
that of a half-civilized people is poetical. 

15 This change in the language of men is partly the cause 
and partly the effect of a corresponding change in the 
nature of their intellectual operations, of a change by 
which science gains and poetry loses. Generalization 
is necessary to the advancement of knowledge ; but 

20 particularity is indispensable to the creations of the 
imagination. In proportion as men know more and 
think more, they look less at individuals and more at 
classes. They therefore make better theories and worse 
poems. They give us vague phrases instead of images, 

25 and personified qualities instead of men. They may be 
better able to analyze human nature than their prede- 
cessors. But analysis is not the business of the poet. 
His office is to portray, not to dissect. He may believe 
in a moral sense, like Shaftesbury; he may refer all 
human actions to self-interest, like Helvetius; or he 



MILTON. 13 

may never think about the matter at all. His creed on 
such subjects will no more influence his poetry, properly 
so called, than the notions which a painter may have 
conceived respecting the lachrymal glands, or the circu- 
lation of the blood, will affect the tears of his ISTiobe, or 5 
the blushes of his Aurora. If Shakespeare had written 
a book on the motives of human actions, it is by no 
means certain that it would have been a good one. It 
is extremely improbable that it would have contained 
half so much able reasoning on the subject as is to lo 
be found in the " Fable of the Bees." But could Mande- 
ville have created an lago ? Well as he knew how to 
resolve characters into their elements, would he have 
been able to combine those elements in such a manner 
as to make up a man, a real, living, individual man ? 15 

Perhaps no person- can be a poet, or can even enjoy 
poetry, without a certain unsoundness of mind, if any- 
thing which gives so much pleasure ought to be called 
unsoundness. By poetry we mean not all writing in 
verse, nor even all good writing in verse. Our definition 20 
excludes many metrical compositions which, on other 
grounds, deserve the highest praise. By poetry we mean 
the art of employing words in such a manner as to pro- 
duce an illusion on the imagination, the art of doing by 
means of words what the painter does by means of 25 
colors. Thus the greatest of poets has described it, in 
lines universally admired for the vigor and felicity of 
their diction, and still more valuable on account of the 
just notion which they convey of the art in which he 
excelled : — 



14 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

"As imagination bodies forth 
The forms of things unknown, tlie poet's pen 
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing 
A local habitation and a name." 

These are the fruits of the " fine frenzy " which he 
ascribes to the poet, — a fine frenzy, doubtless, but still 
a frenzy. Truth, indeed, is essential to poetry ; but it 
is the truth of madness. The reasonings are just; but 

5 the premises are false. After the first suppositions 
have been made, everything ought to be consistent ; but 
those first suppositions require a degree of credulity 
which almost amounts to a partial and temporary de- 
rangement of the intellect. Hence of all people children 

10 are the most imaginative. They abandon themselves 
without reserve to every illusion. Every image which 
is strongly presented to their mental eye produces on 
them the effect of reality. No man, whatever his sensi- 
bility may be, is ever affected by Hamlet or Lear, as a 

15 little girl is affected by the story of poor Red Eiding- 
liood. She knows that it is all false, that wolves cannot 
speak, that there are no wolves in England. Yet in 
spite of her knowledge she believes ; she weeps ; she 
trembles ; she dares not go into a dark room lest she 

20 should feel the teeth of the monster at her throat. Such 
is the despotism of the imagination over uncultivated 
minds. 

In a rude state of society men are children with a 
greater variety of ideas. It is therefore in such a state 

25 of society that we may expect to find the poetical tem- 
perament in its liighest perfection. In an enlightened 



MILTON. 15 

age there will be much intelligence, much science, much 
philosophy, abundance of just classification and subtle 
analysis, abundance of art and eloquence, abundance of 
verses, and even of good ones ; but little poetry. Men 
will judge and compare ; but they will not create. They 5 
will talk about the old poets, and comment on them, and 
to a certain degree enjoy them. But they will be scarcely 
able to conceive the effect which poetry produced on 
their ruder ancestors, the agony, the ecstasy, the pleni- 
tude of belief. The Greek Rhapsodists, according to 10 
Plato, could scarce recite Homer without falling into 
convulsions. The Mohawk hardly feels the scalping- 
knife while he shouts his death-song. The power which 
the ancient bards of Wales and Germany exercised over 
their auditors seems to modern readers almost miracu- 15 
lous. Such feelings are very rare in a civilized commu- 
nity, and most rare among those who participate most 
in its improvements. They linger longest among the 
peasantry. 

Poetry produces an illusion on the eye of the mind, as 20 
a magic lanteru produces an illusion on the eye of the 
body. And, as the magic lantern acts best in a dark 
room, poetry effects its purpose most completely in a 
dark age. As the light of knowledge breaks in upon 
its exhibitions, as the outlines of certainty become more 25 
and more definite, and the shades of probability more 
and more distinct, the hues and lineaments of the phan- 
toms which the poet calls up grow fainter and fainter. 
We cannot unite the incompatible advantages of reality 
and deception, the clear discernment of truth, and the 30 
exquisite enjoyment of fiction. 



16 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

He who, in an enlightened and literary society, aspires 
to be a great poet, must first become a little child. He 
must take to pieces the whole web of his mind. He 
must unlearn much of that knowledge which has per- 

5 haps constituted hitherto his chief title to superiority. 
His very talents will be a hindrance to him. His diffi- 
culties will be proportioned to his proficiency in the 
pursuits which are fashionable among his contempora- 
ries ; and that proficiency will in general be proportioned 

10 to the vigor and activity of his mind. And it is well if, 
after all his sacrifices and exertions, his works do not 
resemble a lisping man or a modern ruin. We have 
seen in our own time great talents, intense labor, and 
long meditation, employed in this struggle against the 

15 spirit of the age, and employed, we will not say abso- 
lutely in vain, but with dubious success and feeble 
applause. 

If these reasonings be just, no poet has ever triumphed 
over greater difficulties than Milton, He received a 

20 learned education ; he was a profound and elegant clas- 
sical scholar; he had studied all the mysteries of rab 
binical literature : he was intimately acquainted with 
every language of modern Europe from wliich either 
pleasure or information was then to be derived. He 

25 was perhaps the only great poet of later times who has 
been distinguished by tlie excellence of his Latin verse. 
The genius of Petrarch was scarcely of the first order ; 
and his poems in the ancient language, though much 
praised by those who have never read them, are wretched 
compositions. Cowley, with all his admirable wit and 



MILTON. 17 

ingenuity, had little imagination ; nor indeed do we 
tliink his classical diction comparable to that of Milton. 
The authority of Johnson is against us on this point. 
But Johnson had studied the bad writers of the Middle 
Ages till he had become utterly insensible to the Augustan 5 
elegance, and was as ill qualified to judge between two 
Latin styles as a habitual drunkard to set up for a wine- 
taster. 

Versification in a dead language is an exotic, a far- 
fetched, costly, sickly imitation of that which elsewhere 10 
may be found in healthful and spontaneous perfection. 
The soils on which this rarity flourishes are in general 
as ill suited to the production of vigorous native poetry 
as the flower-pots of a" hot-house to the growth of oaks. 
That the author of the " Paradise Lost" should have writ- 15 
ten the Epistle to Manso was truly wonderful. Never 
before were such marked originality and such exquisite 
mimicry found together. Indeed, in all the Latin poems 
of Milton the artificial manner indispensable to such 
works is admirably preserved, while, at the same time, 20 
his genius gives to them a peculiar charm, an air of 
nobleness and freedom, which distinguishes them from 
all other writings of the same class. They remind us 
of the amusements of those angelic warriors who com- 
posed the cohort of Gabriel : — 25 

" About him exercised heroic games 
The unarmed youth of heaven; but nigh at hand 
Celestial armoiy, shields, helms, and spears. 
Hung high, with diamond flaming and with gold." 



18 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

We cannot look upon the sportive exercises for which 
the genius of Milton ungirds itself, without catching a 
glimpse of the gorgeous and terrible panoply which it is 
accustomed to wear. The strength of his imagination 

5 triumphed over every obstacle. So intense and ardent 
was the fire of his mind, that it not only was not suffo- 
cated beneath the weight of fuel, but penetrated the 
whole superincumbent mass with its own heat and 
N J radiance. 

10 It is not our intention to attempt anything like a com- 
plete examination of the poetry of Milton. The public 
has long been agreed as to the merit of the most remark- 
able passages, the incomparable harmony of the numbers, 
and the excellence of that style which no rival has been 

15 able to equal and no parodist to degrade ; which displays 
in their highest perfection the idiomatic powers of the 
English tongue, and to which every ancient and every 
modern language has contributed something of grace, of 
energy, or of music. In the vast field of criticism on 

20 which we are entering, innumerable reapers have already 
put their sickles. Yet the harvest is so abundant that 
the negligent search of a straggling gleaner may be 
rewarded with a sheaf. 

The most striking characteristic of the poetry of Mil- 

25 ton is the extreme remoteness of the associations by 
means of which it acts on the reader. Its effect is pro- 
duced, not so much by what it expresses, as by what it 
suggests ; not so much by the ideas which it directly 
conveys, as by other ideas which are connected with 
them. He electrifies the mind throus:!! conductors. 



MILTON. 19 

The most unimaginative man must understand the Iliad. 
Homer gives him no choice, and requires from him no 
exertion, but takes the whole upon himself, and sets the 
images in so clear a light that it is impossible to be 
blind to them. The works of Milton cannot be compre- 5 
hended or enjoyed unless the mind of the reader co- 
operates with that of the writer. He does not paint 
a finished picture, or play for a mere passive listener. 
He sketches, and leaves others to fill up the outline. 
He strikes the key-note, and expects his hearer to make 10 
out the melody. 

We often hear of the magical influence of poetry. 
The expression in general means nothing ; but, applied 
to the writings of Milton, it is most appropriate. His 
poetry acts like an incantation. Its merit lies less in 15 
its obvious meaning than in its occult power. There 
would seem, at first sight, to be no more in his words 
than in other words. But they are words of enchant- 
ment. No sooner are they pronounced, than the past is 
present and the distant near. New forms of beauty 20 
start at once into existence, and all the burial-places of 
the memory give up their dead. Change the structure 
of the sentence ; substitute one synonym for another, 
and the whole effect is destroyed. The spell loses its 
power ; and he who should then hope to conjure with it 25 
would find himself as much mistaken as Cassim in the 
Arabian tale, when he stood crying, "Open Wheat," 
" Open Barley," to the door which obeyed no sound but 
" Open Sesame." The miserable failure of Dryden in 
his attempt to translate into his own diction some parts 



20 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

of the '' Paradise Lost," is a remarkable instance of 
this. 

In support of these observations we may remark, that 
scarcely any passages in the poems of iMilton are more 

5 generally known, or more frequently repeated, than those 
which are little more than muster-rolls of names. They 
are not always more appropriate or more melodious than 
other names. But they are charmed names. Every one of 
them is the first link in a long chain of associated ideas. 

10 Like the dwelling-place of our infancy revisited in man- 
hood, like the song of our country heard in a strange land, 
they produce upon us an effect wholly independent of 
their intrinsic value. One transports us back to a remote 
period of history. Another places us among the novel 

15 scenes and manners of a distant region. A third evokes 
all the dear classical recollections of childhood, the school- 
room, the dog-eared Virgil, the holiday, and the prize. 
A fourth brings before us the splendid phantoms of 
chivalrous romance, the trophied lists, the embroidered 

20 housings, the quaint devices, the haunted forests, the en- 
chanted gardens, the achievements of enamoured knights, 
and the smiles of rescued princesses. 

In none of the works of Milton is his peculiar manner 
more happily displayed than in the " Allegro " and the 

25 "Penseroso." It is impossible to conceive that the 
mechanism of language can be brought to a more ex- 
quisite degree of perfection. These poems differ from 
others as ottar of roses differs from ordinary rose-water, 
the close-packed essence from the thin, dihited mixture. 
They are indeed not so much poems as collections of 



MILTON. 21 

hints, from each of which the reader is to make out a 
poem for himself. Every epithet is a text for a stanza. 

The " Comus " and the " Samson Agonistes " are works 
which, though of very different merit, offer some marked 
points of resemblance. Both are lyric poems in the 5 
form of plays. There are perhaps no two kinds of com- 
position so essentially dissimilar as the drama and the 
ode. Tlie business of the dramatist is to keep himself 
out of sight, and to let nothing appear but his characters. 
As soon as he attracts notice to his personal feelings, the 10 
illusion is broken. The effect is as unpleasant as that 
which is produced on the stage by the voice of a prompter 
or the entrance of a scene-shifter. Hence it was that 
the tragedies of Byron were his least successful per- 
formances. They resemble those pasteboard pictures in- 15 
vented by the friend of children, Mr. Xewbery, in which 
a single movable head goes round twenty different bodies, 
so tliat the same face looks out upon us, successively, 
from the uniform of a hussar, the furs of a judge, and 
the rags of a beggar. In all the characters, patriots and 20 
tyrants, haters and lovers, the frown and sneer of Harold 
were discernible in an instant. But this species of 
egotism, though fatal to the drama, is the inspiration 
of the ode. It is the part of the lyric poet to abandon 
himself, without reserve, to his own emotions. 25 

Between these hostile elements many great men have 
endeavored to effect an amalgamation, but never with 
complete success. The Greek drama, on the model 
of which the "Samson" was written, sprung from the 
ode. The dialogue was ingrafted on the chorus, and 



22 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

naturally partook of its character. The genius of the 
greatest of the Athenian dramatists co-operated with 
the circumstances under which tragedy made its first 
appearance, ^schylus was, head and heart, a lyric poet. 

5 In his time the Greeks had far more intercourse with 
the East than in the days of Homer; and they had not 
yet acquired that immense superiority in war, in science, 
and in the arts, which, in the following generation, led 
them to treat the Asiatics with contempt. From the 

10 narrative of Herodotus it would seem that they still 
looked up, with the veneration of disciples, to Egypt 
and Assyria, x'^t this period, accordingly, it was natural 
that the literature of Greece should be tinctured with 
the Oriental style. And that style, we think, is dis- 

15 cernible in the works of Pindar and ^schylus. The 
latter often reminds us of the Hebrew writers. The 
book of Job, indeed, in conduct and diction, bears a 
considerable resemblance to some of his dramas. Con- 
sidered as plays, his works are absurd; considered as 

20 choruses, they are above all praise. If, for instance, 
we examine the address of Clytemnestra to Agamemnon 
on his return, or the description of the seven Argive 
chiefs, by the principles of dramatic writing, we shall 
instantly condemn them as monstrous. But if we forget 

25 the characters, and think only of the poetry, we shall 
admit that it has never been surpassed in energy and 
niagnificence. Sophocles made the Greek drama as dra- 
matic as was consistent with its original form. His por- 
traits of men have a sort of similarity ; bat it is the 
similarity not of a painting, but of a bass-relief. It sug- 



MILTON. 23 

gests a resemblance; but it does not produce an illusion. 
Euripides attempted to carry the reform farther. But 
it was a task far beyond his powers, perhaps beyond any 
powers. Instead of correcting what was bad, he de- 
stroyed what was excellent. He substituted crutches 5 
for stilts, bad sermons for good odes. 

Milton, it is well known, admired Euripides highly ; 
much more highly than, in our opinion, Euripides de- 
served. Indeed, the caresses which this partiality leads 
our countryman to bestow on " sad Electra's poet," some- lo 
times remind us of the beautiful Queen of Fairyland 
kissing the long ears of Bottom. At all events, there 
can be no doubt that this veneration for the Athenian, 
whether just or not, was injurious to the " Samson Ago- 
nistes." Had Milton taken ^schylus for his model, he 15 
would have given himself up to the lyric inspiration, 
and poured out profusely all the treasures of his mind, 
without bestowing a thought on those draraati-c proprie- 
ties which the nature of the work rendered it impossible 
to preserve. In the attempt to reconcile things in their 20 
own nature inconsistent, he has failed, as every one else 
must have failed. We cannot identify ourselves with 
the characters, as in a good play. We cannot identify 
ourselves with the poet, as in a good ode. The conflicting 
ingredients, like an acid and an alkali mixed, neutralize 25 
each other. We are by no means insensible to the merits 
of this celebrated piece, to the severe dignity of the 
style, the graceful and pathetic solemnity of the opening 
speech, or the wild and barbaric melody which gives so 
striking an effect to the choral passages. But we think 



24 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

it, we confess, the least successful effort of the genius of 
Milton, 

The " Comus " is framed on the model of the Italian 
masque, as the " Samson " is framed on the model of the 

5 Greek tragedy. It is certainly the noblest performance 
of the kind which exists in any language. It is as far 
superior to the Faithful Shepherdess, as the Faithful 
Shepherdess is to the Aminta, or the Aminta to the 
Pastor Fido. It was well for Milton that he had here 

10 no Euripides to mislead him. He understood and loved 
the literature of modern Italy. But he did not feel for 
it the same veneration which he entertained for the 
remains of Athenian and Roman poetry, consecrated by 
so many lofty and endearing recollections. The faults, 

15 moreover, of his Italian predecessors were of a kind to 
which his mind had a deadly antipathy. He could 
stoop to a plain style, sometimes even to a bald style ; 
but false .brilliancy was his utter aversion. His Muse 
had no objection to a russet attire ; but she turned with 

20 disgust from the finery of Guarini, as tawdry and as 
paltry as the rags of a chimney-sweeper on May-day. 
Whatever ornaments she wears are of massive gold, not 
only dazzling to the sight, but capable of standing tlie 
severest test of the crucible. 

25 Milton attended in the " Comus " to the distinction 
which he afterwards neglected in the " Samson." He 
made his Masque what it ought to be, essentially lyrical, 
and dramatic only in semblance. He has not attempted 
a fruitless struggle against a defect inherent in tlie nature 
of tliat species of composition ; and he has therefore sue- 



MILTON. 25 

ceeded, wherever success was not impossible. The 
speeches must be read as majestic soliloquies ; and he 
who so reads them will be enraptured with their elo- 
quence, their sublimity, and their music. The interrup- 
tions of the dialogue, however, impose a constraint upon r^ 
the writer, and break the illusion of the reader. The 
finest passages are those which are lyric in form as well 
as in spirit. " I should much commend," says the excel- 
lent Sir Henry Wotton in a letter to Milton, " the tragical 
part, if the lyrical did not ravish me with a certain lo 
Dorique delicacy in your songs and odes, whereunto, I 
must plainly confess to you, I have seen yet nothing 
parallel in our language." The criticism was just. It 
is when Milton escapes from the shackles of the dia- 
logue, when he is discharged from the labor of uniting 15 
two incongruous styles, when he is at liberty to indulge 
his choral raptures without reserve, that he rises even 
above himself. Then, like his own Good Genius bursting 
from the earthly form and weeds of Thyrsis, he stands 
forth in celestial freedom and beauty ; he seems to cry 20 
exultingly, — 

" Now my task is smoothly done, 
lean fly, or I can run," 

to skim the earth, to soar above the clouds, to bathe in 
the Elysian dew of the rainbow, and to inhale the balmy 
smells of nard and cassia, which the musky wings of the 
zephyr scatter through the cedared alleys of the Hes- 25 
perides. 

There are several of the ininor poems of Milton on 



26 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

which we would willingly make a few remarks. Still 
more willingly would we enter into a detailed examina- 
tion of that admirable poem, the " Paradise Regained," 
which, strangely enough, is scarcely ever mentioned 

5 except as an instance of the blindness of the parental 
affection which men of letters bear towards the offspring 
of their intellects. That Milton was mistaken in pre- 
ferring this work, excellent as it is, to the "Paradise 
Lost," we readily admit. But we are sure that the supe- 

10 riority of the "Paradise Lost " to the " Paradise Re- 
gained " is not more decided than the superiority of the 
"Paradise Regained" to every poem which has since 
made its appearance. Our limits, however, prevent us 
from discussing the point at length. We hasten on to 

15 that extraordinary production which the general suffrage 
of critics has placed in the highest class of human com- 
positions. 

The only poem of modern times which can be com- 
pared with the "Paradise Lost " is the " Divine Comedy." 

20 The subject of Milton, in some points, resembled that 
of Dante ; but he has treated it in a widely different 
manner. We cannot, we think, better illustrate our 
opinion respecting our own great poet, than by contrast- 
ing him with the father of Tuscan literature. 

25 The poetry of Milton differs from that of Dante as 
the hieroglyphics of Egypt differed from the picture- 
writing of Mexico. The images which Dante employs 
speak for themselves ; they stand simply for what they 
are. Those of Milton have a signification which is often 
discernible only to the initiated. Their value depends 



MILTON. 27 

less on what they directly represent than on what they 
remotely suggest. However strange, however grotesque, 
may be the appearance which Dante undertakes to 
describe, he never shrinks from describing it. He gives 
us the shape, the color, the sound, the smell, the taste ; 5 
he counts the numbers ; he measures the size. His 
similes are the illustrations of a traveller. Unlike those 
of other poets, and especially of Milton, they are intro- 
duced in a plain, business-like manner ; not for the sake 
of any beauty in the objects from which they are drawn ; lo 
not for the sake of any ornament which they may impart 
to the poem ; but simply in order to make the meaning 
of the writer as clear to the reader as it is to himself. 
The ruins of the precipice which led from the sixth to 
the seventh circle of hell were like those of the rock 15 
which fell into the Adige on the south of Trent. The 
cataract of Phlegethon was like that of Aqua Cheta at 
the monastery of St. Benedict. The place where the 
heretics were confined in burning tombs resembled the 
vast cemetery of Aries. 20 

Now let us compare with the exact details of Dante 
the dim intimations of Milton. We will cite a few ex- 
amples. The English poet has never thought of taking 
the measure of Satan. He gives us merely a vague idea 
of vast bulk. In one passage the fiend lies stretched 25 
out, huge in length, floating many a rood, equal in size to 
the earth-born enemies of Jove, or to the sea-monster 
which the mariner mistakes for an island. When he 
addresses himself to battle against the guardian angels, 
he stands like Teneriffe or Atlas : his stature reaches the 



28 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

sky. Contrast with these descriptions the lines in which 
Dante has described the gigantic spectre of Nimrod. 
" His face seemed to me as long and as broad as the ball 
of St. Peter's at Rome ; and his other limbs were in 

5 proportion ; so that the bank, which concealed him from 
the waist downwards, nevertheless showed so much of 
him, that three tall Germans would in vain have at- 
tempted to reach to his hair." We are sensible that we 
do no justice to the admirable style of the Florentine 

10 poet. But Mr. Gary's translation is not at hand; and 
our version, however rude, is sufficient to illustrate our 
meaning. 

Once more, compare the lazar-house in the eleventh 
book of the " Paradise Lost " with the last ward of Male- 

15 bolge in Dante. Milton avoids the loathsome details, 
and takes refuge in indistinct but solemn and tremen- 
dous imagery : Despair hurrying from couch to couch to 
mock the wretches with his attendance ; Death shaking 
his dart over them, but, in spite of supplications, delay- 

20 ing to strike. What says Dante ? " There was such a 
moan there as there would be if all the sick who, be- 
tween July and September, are in the hospitals of Val- 
dichiana, and of the Tuscan swamps, and of Sardinia, 
were in one pit together ; and such a stench was issuing 

25 forth as is wont to issue from decayed limbs." 

We will not take upon ourselves the invidious office 
of settling precedency between two such writers. Each 
in his own department is incomparable; and each, we 
may remark, has wisely, or fortunately, taken a subject 
adapted to exhibit his peculiar talent to the greatest 



MILTON. 29 

advantage. The "Divine Comedy " is a personal narrative. 
Dante is the eye-witness and ear-witness of tliat which 
he relates. He is the very man who has heard the tor- 
mented spirits crying out for the second death ; who has 
read the dusky characters on the portal within which 5 
there is no hope ; who has hidden his face from the ter- 
rors of the Gorgon; who has fled from the hooks and the 
seething pitch of Barbariccia and Draghignazzo. His 
own hands have grasped the shaggy sides of Lucifer. 
His own feet have climbed the mountain of expiation, lo 
His own brow has been marked by the purifying angel. 
The reader would throw aside such a tale in incredu- 
lous disgust, unless it were told with the strongest air of 
veracity ; with a sobriety even in its horrors ; with the 
greatest precision and multiplicity in its details. The 15 
narrative of Milton in this respect differs from that of 
Dante, as the adventures of Amadis differs from those of 
Gulliver. The author of "Amadis " would have made his 
book ridiculous if he had introduced those minute par- 
ticulars which give such a charm to the work of Swift ; 20 
the nautical observations, the affected delicacy about 
names, the ofiicial documents transcribed at full length, 
and all the unmeaning gossip and scandal of the court, 
springing out of nothing, and tending to nothing. We 
are not shocked at being told that a man who lived, no- 25 
body knows when, saw many very strange sights, and we 
can easily abandon ourselves to the illusion of the 
romance. But when Lemuel Gulliver, surgeon, resident 
at Rotherhithe, tells us of pygmies and giants, flying 
islands, and philosophizing horses, nothing but such cir- 



30 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

cumstantial touches could produce for a single moment 
a deception on the imagination. 

Of all the poets who have introduced into their works 
the agency of supernatural beings, Milton has succeeded 

5 best. Here Dante decidedly yields to him ; and as this 
is a point on which many rash and ill-considered judg- 
ments have been pronounced, we feel inclined to dwell 
on it a little longer. The most fatal error which a poet 
can possibly commit in the management of his machinery, 

10 is that of attempting to philosophize too much. Milton 
has been often censured for ascribing to spirits many 
functions of which spirits must be incapable. But these 
objections, though sanctioned by eminent names, origi- 
nate, we venture to say, in profound ignorance of the 

15 art of poetry. 

What is spirit ? What are our own minds, the portion 
of spirit with which we are best acquainted ? We 
observe certain phenomena. We cannot explain them 
into material causes. We therefore infer that there exists 

20 something which is not material. But of this something 
we have no idea. We can define it only by negatives. 
We can reason about it only by symbols. We use the 
word, but we have no image of the thing; and the busi- 
ness of poetry is with the images, and not with words. 

25 The poet uses words indeed ; but they are merely the 
instruments of his art, not its objects. They are the 
materials which he is to dispose in such a manner as 
to present a picture to the mental eye. And if they are 
not so disposed, they are no more entitled to be called 

30 poetry than a bale of canvas and a box of colors to be 
called a painting. 



MILTON. 31 

Logicians may reason about abstractions. But the 
great mass of men must have images. The strong ten- 
dency of the multitude in all ages and nations to idola- 
try can be explained on no other principle. The first 
inhabitants of Greece, there is reason to believe, wor- 5 
shipped one invisible Deity. But the necessity of hav- 
ing something more definite to adore produced, in a few 
centuries, the innumerable crowd of gods and goddesses. 
In like manner the ancient Persians thought it impious 
to exhibit the Creator under a human form. Yet even lO 
these transferred to the sun the worship which, in specu- 
lation, they considered due only to the Supreme Mind. 
The history of the Jews is the record of a continued 
struggle between pure Theism, supported by the most 
terrible sanctions, and the strangely fascinating desire of 15 
having some visible and tangible object of adoration. 
Perhaps none of the secondary causes which Gibbon has 
assigned for the rapidity with which Christianity spread 
over the world, while Judaism scarcely ever acquired a 
proselyte, operated more powerfully than this feeling. 20 
God, the uncreated, the incomprehensible, the invisible, 
attracted few worshippers. A philosopher might admire 
so noble a conception ; but the crowd turned away in dis- 
gust from words which presented no image to their minds. 
It was before Deity, embodied in a human form, walking 25 
among men, partaking of their infirmities, leaning 
on their bosoms, weeping over their graves, slumbering 
in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the prejudices 
of the Synagogue, and the doubts of the Academy, and 
the pride of the Portico, and the fasces of the Lictor, 



32 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

and the swords of thirty legions, were humbled in the 
dust. Soon after Christianity had achieved its triumph, 
the principle which had assisted it began to corrupt it. 
It became a new paganism. Patron saints assumed the 

5 offices of household gods. St. George took the place of 
Mars. St. Elmo consoled the mariner for the loss of Cas- 
tor and Pollux. The Virgin Mother and Cecilia suc- 
ceeded to Venus and the Muses. The fascination of sex 
and loveliness was again joined to that of celestial dig- 

10 nity ; and the homage of chivalry was blended with that 
of religion. Reformers have often made a stand against 
these feelings ; but never with more than apparent and 
partial success. The men who demolished the images 
in cathedrals have not always been able to demolish those 

15 which were enshrined in their minds. It would not be 
difficult to show that in politics the same rule holds good. 
Doctrines, we are afraid, must generally be embodied 
before they can excite a strong public feeling. The 
multitude is more easily interested for the most unmean- 

20 ing badge, or the most insignificant name, than for the 
most important principle. 

From these considerations, we infer that no poet who 
should affect that metaphysical accuracy for the want of 
whicl' Milton has been blamed, would escape a disgrace- 

25 ful failure. Still, however, there was another extreme 
which, though far less dangerous, was also to be avoided. 
The imaginations of men are in a great measure under 
the control of their opinions. The most exquisite art of 
poetical coloring can produce no illusion when it is em- 
ployed to represent that which is at once perceived to be 



MILTON. 33 

incongruous and absurd. Milton wrote in an age of 
philosophers and theologians. It was necessary, there- 
fore, for him to abstain from giving such a shock to 
their understandings as might break the charm which it 
was his object to throw over their imaginations. This is 5 
the real explanation of the indistinctness and inconsist- 
ency with which he has often been reproached. Dr. 
Johnson acknowledges that it was absolutely necessary 
that the spirits should be clothed with material forms. 
" But," says he, " the poet should have secured the con- 10 
sistency of his system by keeping immateriality out of 
sight, and seducing the reader to drop it from his 
thoughts." This is easily said ; but what if Milton could 
not seduce his readers to drop immateriality from their 
thoughts ? What if the contrary opinion had taken so 15 
full a possession of the minds of men as to leave no 
room even for the half-belief which poetry requires ? 
Such we suspect to have been the case. It was impossi- 
ble for the poet to adopt altogether the material or the 
immaterial system. He therefore took his stand on 20 
the debatable ground. He left the whole in ambiguity. 
He has doubtless, by so doing, laid himself open to the 
charge of inconsistency. But, though philosophically in 
the wrong, we cannot but believe that he was poetically 
in the right. This task, which almost any other writer 25 
would have found impracticable, was easy to him. The 
peculiar art which he possessed of communicating his 
meaning circuitously through a long succession of asso- 
ciated ideas, and of intimating more than he expressed, 
enabled him to disguise those incongruities which he 
could not avoid. 



34 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Poetry which relates to the beings of another workl 
ought to be at once mysterious and picturesque. That 
of Milton is so. That of Dante is picturesque indeed 
beyond any that ever was written. Its effect approaches 

5 to that produced by the pencil or the chisel. But it is 
picturesque to the exclusion of all mystery. This is a 
fault on the right side, a fault inseparable from the plan 

■ of Dante's poem, which, as we have already observed, 
rendered the utmost accuracy of description necessary. 

10 Still it is a fault. The supernatural agents excite an 
interest ; but it is not the interest which is proper to 
supernatural agents. We feel that we could talk to the 
ghosts and demons, without any emotion of unearthly 
awe. We could, like Don Juan, ask them to supper, and 

15 eat heartily in their company. Dante's angels are good 
men with wings. His devils are spiteful, ugly execu- 
tioners. His dead men are merely living men in strange 
situations. The scene which passes between the poet 
and Farinata is justly celebrated. Still, Farinata in 

20 the burning tomb is exactly what Farinata would have 
been at an aiito da fe. Nothing can be more touching 
than the first interview of Dante and Beatrice. Yet 
what is it, but a lovely woman chiding, with sweet aus- 
tere composure, the lover for whose affection she is 

25 grateful, but whose vices she reprobates ? The feelings 
which give the passage its charm would suit the streets 
of Florence as well as the summit of the Mount of 
Purgatory. 

The spirits of Milton are unlike those of almost all 
other writers. His fiends, in particular, are wonderful 



MILTON. 35 

creations. Tliey are not metaphysical abstractions. They 
are not wicked men. They are not ugly beasts. They 
have no horns, no tails, none of the fee-faw-fum of Tasso 
and Klopstock. They have just enough in common 
with human nature to be intelligible to human beings. 5 
Their characters are, like their forms, marked by a cer- 
tain dim resemblance to those of men, but exaggerated 
to gigantic dimensions, and veiled in mysterious gloom. 
Perhaps the gods and demons of ^schylus may best 
bear a comparison with the angels and devils of Milton. 10 
The style of the Athenian had, as we have remarked, 
something of the Oriental character ; and the same pecu- 
liarity may be traced in his mythology. It has nothing 
of the amenity and elegance which we generally find in 
the superstitions of Greece. All is rugged, barbaric, and 15 
colossal. The legends of ^schylus seem to harmonize 
less with the fragrant groves and graceful porticos in 
which his countrymen paid their vows to the God of 
Light and Goddess of Desire, than with those huge and 
grotesque labyrinths of eternal granite in which Egypt 20 
enshrined her mystic Osiris, or in which Hindostan still 
bows down to her seven-headed idols. His favorite gods 
are those of the elder generation, the sons of heaven 
and earth, compared with whom Jupiter himself was a 
stripling and an upstart, the gigantic Titans, and the 25 
inexorable Furies. Foremost among his creations of 
this class stands Prometheus, half fiend, half redeemer, 
the friend of man, the sullen and implacable enemy of 
heaven. Prometheus bears undoubtedly a considerable 
resemblance to the Satan of Milton. In both we find 



36 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

the same impatience of control, the same ferocity, the 
same unconquerable pride. In both characters also are 
mingled, though in very different proportions, some kind 
and generous feelings. Prometheus, however, is hardly 

5 superhuman enough. He talks too much of his chains 
and his uneasy posture ; he is rather too much depressed 
and agitated. His resolution seems to depend on the 
knowledge which he possesses that he holds the fate of 
his torturer in his hands, and that the hour of his release 

10 will surely come. But Satan is a creature of another 
sphere. The might of his intellectual nature is victori- 
ous over the extremity of pain. Amidst agonies which 
cannot be conceived without horror, he deliberates, re- 
solves, and even exults. Against the sword of Michael, 

15 against the thunder of Jehovah, against the flaming lake, 
and the marl burning with solid fire, against the pros- 
pect of an eternity of unintermitted misery, his spirit 
bears up unbroken, resting on its own innate energies, 
requiring no support from anything external, nor even 

20 from hope itself. 

To return for a moment to the parallel which we have 
been attempting to draw between Milton and Dante, we 
would add that the poetry of these great men has in a 
considerable degree taken its character from their moral 

25 qualities. They are not egotists. They rarely obtrude 
their idiosyncrasies on their readers. They have noth- 
ing in common with those modern beggars for fame, who 
extort a pittance from the compassion of the inexperi- 
enced by exposing the nakedness and sores of their 
minds. Yet it would be difficult to name two writers 



MILTON. 37 

whose works have been more completely, though un- 
designedly, colored by their personal feelings. 

The character of Milton was peculiarly distinguished 
by loftiness of spirit ; that of Dante by intensity of 
feeling. In every line of the " Divine Comedy " we dis- 5 
cern the asperity which is produced by pride struggling 
with miser3^ There is perhaps no work in the world so 
deeply and uniformly sorrowful. The melancholy of 
Dante was no fantastic caprice. It was not, as far as at 
this distance of time can be judged, the effect of external lo 
circumstances. It was from within. Neither love nor 
glory, neither the conflicts of earth nor the hope of 
heaven, could dispel it. It turned every consolation and 
every pleasure into its own nature. It resembled that 
noxious Sardinian soil of which the intense bitterness is 15 
said to have been perceptible even in its honey. His 
mind was, in the noble language of the Hebrew poet, 
"aland of darkness, as darkness itself, and where the 
light was as darkness." The gloom of his character dis- 
colors all the passions of men, and all the face of nature, 20 
and tinges with its own livid hue the flowers of Paradise 
and the glories of the eternal throne. All the portraits 
of him are singularly characteristic. No person can 
look on the features, noble even to ruggedness, the dark 
furrows of the cheek, the haggard and woful stare of the 25 
eye, the sullen and contemptuous curve of the lip, and 
doubt that they belong to a man too proud and too sen- 
sitive to be happy. 

Milton was, like Dante, a statesman and a lover ; and, 
like Dante, he had been unfortunate in ambition and in 



38 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

love. He had survived his health and his sight, the 
comforts of his home, and the prosperity of his party. 
Of the great men by whom he had been distinguished 
at his entrance into life, some had been taken away from 

5 the evil to come ; some had carried into foreign climates 
their unconquerable hatred of oppression ; some were 
pining in dungeons ; and some had poured forth their 
blood on scaffolds. Venal and licentious scribblers, with 
just sufficient talent to clothe the thoughts of a pandar 

10 in the style of a bellman, were now the favorite writers 
of the sovereign and of the public. It was a loathsome 
herd, which could be compared to nothing so fitly as to 
the rabble of " Comus," grotesque monsters, half bestial, 
half human, dropping with wine, bloated with gluttony, 

15 and reeling in obscene dances. Amidst these that fair 
Muse was placed, like the chaste lady of the Masque, 
lofty, spotless, and serene, to be chattered a,t, and pointed 
at, and grinned at, by the whole rout of Satyrs and Gob- 
lins. If ever despondency and asperity could be ex- 

20 cused in any man, they might have been excused in 
Milton. But the strength of his mind overcame every 
calamity. / Neither blindness, nor gout, nor age, nor 
penury, nor domestic afflictions, nor political disappoint- 
ments, nor abuse, nor proscription, nor neglect, had 

25 power to disturb his sedate and majestic patience. His 
spirits do not seem to have been high, but they were 
singularly equable. His temper was serious, perhaps 
stern ; but it was a temper which no sufferings could 
render sullen or fretful. Such as it was when, on the 
eve of great events, he returned from his travels, in the 



MILTON. 39 

prime of health and manly beauty, loaded with literary 
distinctions, and glowing with patriotic hopes, such it 
continued to be when, after having experienced every 
calamity which is incident to our nature, old, poor, 
sightless, and disgraced, he retired to his hovel to die. 5 

Hence it was that, though he wrote the " Paradise Lost " 
at a time of life when images of beauty and tenderness 
are in general beginning to fade, even from those minds 
in which they have not been effaced by anxiety and dis- 
appointment, he adorned it with all that is most lovely lO 
and delightful in the physical and in the moral world. 
Neither Theocritus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more 
healthful sense of the pleasantness of external objects, 
or loved better to luxuriate amidst sunbeams and flowers, 
the songs of nightingales, the juice of summer fruits, and 15 
the coolness of shady fountains. His conception of love 
unites all the voluptuousness of the Oriental harem, and 
all the gallantry of the chivalric tournament, with all 
the pure and quiet affection of an English fireside. His 
poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. 20 
Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairyland, are embosomed 
in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses 
and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the ava- 
lanche. 

Traces, indeed, of the peculiar character of Milton 25 
may be found in all his works ; but it is most strongly 
displayed in the Sonnets. Those remarkable poems 
have been undervalued by critics who have not under- 
stood their nature. They have no epigrammatic point. 
There is none of the ingenuity of Filicaja in the thought. 



40 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

none of the hard and brilliant enamel of Petrarch in the 
style. They are simple but majestic records of the feel- 
ings of the poet ; as little tricked out for the public eye 
as his diary would have been. A victory, an expected 

5 attack upon the city, a momentary fit of depression or 
exultation, a jest thrown out against one of his books, 
a dream which for a short time restored to him that 
beautiful face over which the grave had closed forever, 
led him to musings which, without effort, shaped thera- 

10 selves into verse. The unity of sentiment and severity 
of style which characterize these little pieces remind 
us of the Greek Anthology, or perhaps still more of the 
Collects of the English Liturgy. The noble poem on 
the Massacres of Piedmont is strictly a collect in verse. 

15 The Sonnets are more or less striking, according as 
the occasions which gave birth to them are more or less 
interesting. But they are, almost without exception, 
dignified by a sobriety and greatness of mind to which 
we know not where to look for a parallel. It would, 

20 indeed, be scarcely safe to draw any decided inferences 
as to the character of a writer from passages directly 
egotistical. But the qualities which we have ascribed 
to Milton, though perhaps most strongly marked in 
those parts of his works which treat of his personal 

25 feelings, are distinguishable in every page, and impart 
to all his writings, prose and poetry, English, Latin, and 
Italian, a strong family likeness. 

His public conduct was such as was to be expected 
from a man of a spirit so high and of an intellect so 
powerful. He lived at one of the most memorable eras 



MILTON. 41 

in the history of mankind ; at the very crisis of the great 
conflict between Oromasdes and Arimanes, liberty and 
despotism, reason and prejudice. That great battle was 
fought for no single generation, for no single land. The 
destinies of the human race were staked on the same 5 
cast with the freedom of the English people. Then 
were first proclaimed those mighty principles which 
have since worked their way into the depths of the 
American forests, which have roused Greece from the 
slavery and degradation of two thousand years, and 10 
which, from one end of Europe to the other, have kin- 
dled an unquenchable fire in the hearts of the oppressed, 
and loosed the knees of the oppressors with an unwonted 
fear. 

Of those principles, then struggling for their infant 15 
existence, Milton was the most devoted and eloquent lit- 
erary champion. We need not say how much we admire 
his public conduct. But we cannot disguise from our- 
selves that a large portion of his countrymen still think 
it unjustifiable. The civil war, indeed, has been more 20 
discussed, and is less understood, than any event in 
English history. The friends of liberty labored under 
the disadvantage of which the lion in the fable com- 
plained so bitterly. Though they were the conquerors, 
their enemies were the painters. As a body, the Round- 25 
heads had done their utmost to decry and ruin litera- 
ture ; and literature was even with them, as, in the long 
run, it always is with its enemies. The best book on 
their side of the question is the charming narrative of 
Mrs. Hutchinson. May's History of the Parliament is 



42 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

good ; but it breaks off at the most interesting crisis 
of the struggle. The performance of Ludlow is foolish 
and violent; and most of the later writers who have 
espoused the same cause, Oldmixon, for instance, and 
5 Catherine Macaulay, have, to say the least, been more 
distinguished by zeal than either by candor or by skill. 
On the other side are the most authoritative and the 
most popular historical works in our language, that of 
Clarendon, and that of Hume. The former is not only 

10 ably written and full of valuable information, but has 
also an air of dignity and sincerity which makes even 
the prejudices and errors with which it abounds respect- 
able. Hume, from whose fascinating narrative the great 
mass of the reading public are still contented to take 

15 their opinions, hated religion so much that he hated lib- 
erty for having been allied with religion, and has pleaded 
the cause of tyranny with the dexterity of an advocate, 
while affecting the impartiality of a judge. 

The public conduct of Milton must be approved or 

20 condemned, according as the resistance of the people to 
Charles the First shall appear to be justifiable or crim- 
inal. We shall therefore make no apology for dedicat- 
ing a few pages to the discussion of that interesting and 
most important question. We shall not argue it on gen- 

25 eral grounds. We shall not recur to those primary prin- 
ciples from which the claim of any government to the 
obedience of its subjects is to be deduced. We are 
entitled to that vantage-ground; but we will relinquish 
it. We are, on this point, so confident of superiority, 
that we are not unwilling to imitate the ostentatious 



MILTON. 43 

generosity of those ancient knights, who vowed to joust 
without helmet or shield against all enemies, and to give 
their antagonists the advantage of sun and wind. We 
will take the naked constitutional question. We confi- 
dently affirm, that every reason which can be urged in 5 
favor of the Revolution of 1688 may be urged with at 
least equal force in favor of what is called the Great 
Rebellion. 

In one respect only, we think, can the warmest ad- 
mirers of Charles venture to say that he was a better 10 
sovereign than his son. He was not, in name and pro- 
fession, a Papist ; we say in name and profession, be- 
cause both Charles himself and his creature Laud, while 
they abjured the innocent badges of Popery, retained 
all its worst vices, a complete subjection of reason to 15 
authority, a weak preference of form to substance, a 
childish passion for mummeries, an idolatrous veneration 
for the priestly character, and, above all, a merciless 
intolerance. This, however, we waive. We will con- 
cede that Charles was a good Protestant ; but we say that 20 
his Protestantism does not make the slightest distinction 
between his case and that of James. 

The principles of the Revolution have often been 
grossly misrepresented, and never more than in the 
course of the present year. There is a certain class of 25 
men who, while they profess to hold in reverence the 
great names and great actions of former times, never 
look at them for any other purpose than in order to find 
in them some excuse for existing abuses. In every ven- 
erable precedent they pass by what is essential, and take 



44 MACAU LAY'S ESSAYS. 

only what is accidental : they keep out of sight what is 
beneficial, and hold up to public imitation all that is de- 
fective. If, in any part of any great example, there 
be anything unsound, these flesh-flies detect it with an 
5 unerring instinct, and dart upon it with a ravenous 
delight. If some good end has been attained in spite of 
them, they feel, with their prototype, that — 

" Their labors must be to pervert tbat end, 
And out of good still to find means of evil." 

To the blessings which England has derived from the 
Revolution these people are utterly insensible. The ex- 

10 pulsion of a tyrant, the solemn recognition of popular 
rights, liberty, security, toleration, all go for nothing 
with them. One sect there was, which, from unfortunate 
temporary causes, it was thought necessary to keep under 
close restraint. One part of the empire there was so 

15 unhappily circumstanced, that at that time its misery 
was necessary to our happiness, and its slavery to our 
freedom. These are the parts of the Revolution which 
the politicians of whom we speak love to contemplate, 
and which seem to them not indeed to vindicate, but in 

20 some degree to palliate, the good which it has produced. 
Talk to them of Naples, of Spain, or of South America. 
They stand forth zealots for the doctrine of Divine Right, 
which has now come back to us, like a thief from trans- 
portation, under the alias of Legitimacy. But mention 

25 the miseries of Ireland. Then William is a hero. Then 
Somers and Shrewsbury are great men. Then the Revo- 



MILTON. 45 

lution is a glorious era. The very same persons who, 
iu this country, never omit an opportunity of reviving 
every wretched Jacobite slander respecting the Whigs of 
that period, have no sooner crossed St. George's Chan- 
nel, than they begin to fill their bumpers to the glorious 5 
and immortal memory. They may truly boast that they 
look not at men, but at measures. So that evil be done, 
they care not who does it ; the arbitrary Charles or the 
liberal William, Ferdinand the Catholic or Frederic the 
Protestant. On such occasions their deadliest opponents 10 
may reckon upon their candid construction. The bold 
assertions of these people have of late impressed a large 
portion of the public with an opinion that James the 
Second was expelled simply because he was a Catholic, 
and that the Eevolution was essentially a Protestant 15 
Revolution. 

But this certainly was not the case, nor can any per- 
son who has acquired more knowledge of the history 
of those times than is to be found in Goldsmith's 
'' Abridgment," believe that, if James had held his own 20 
religious opinions without wishing to make proselytes, 
or if, wishing even to make proselytes, he had contented 
himself with exerting only his constitutional influence 
for that purpose, the Prince of Orange would ever have 
been invited over. Our ancestors, we suppose, knew 25 
their own meaning ; and, if we may believe them, their 
hostility was primarily not to Popery, but to tyranny. 
They did not drive out a tyrant because he was a Catho- 
lic ; but they excluded Catholics from the crown, because 
they thought them likely to be tyrants. The ground on 



46 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

which they, in their famous resolution, declared the 
throne vacant, was this, " that James had broken the 
fundamental laws of the kingdom." Every man, there- 
fore, who approves of the Revolution of 1688 must hold 

5 that the breach of fundamental laws on the part of the 
sovereign justifies resistance. The question, then, is 
u/ this : Had Charles the First broken the fundamental 
laws of England ? 

No person can answer in the negative unless he 

10 refuses credit, not merely to all the accusations brought 
against Charles by his opponents, but to the narratives 
of the warmest Royalists, and to the confessions of the 
king himself. If there be any truth in any historian of 
any party who has related the events of that reign, the 

15 conduct of Charles, from his accession to the meeting 
of the Long Parliament, had been a continued course of 
oppression and treachery. Let those who applaud the 
Revolution and condemn the Rebellion mention one 
act of James the Second to which a parallel is not to 

20 be found in the history of his father. Let them lay 
their fingers on a single article in the Declaration of 
Right, presented by the two Houses to William and 
Mary, which Charles is not acknowledged to have vio- 
lated. He had, according to the testimony of his own 

25 friends, usurped the functions of the legislature, raised 
taxes without the consent of parliament, and quar- 
tered troops on the people in the most illegal and 
vexatious manner. Not a single session of parliament 
had passed without some unconstitutional attack on the 
freedom of debate. The right of petition was grossly 



MILTON. 47 

violated ; arbitrary judgments, exorbitant fines, and 
unwarranted imprisonments, were grievances of daily 
occurrence. If these things do not justify resistance, 
the Revolution was treason ; if they do, the great Re- 
bellion was laudable, 5 

But, it is said, why not adopt milder measures ? Why, 
after the king had consented to so many reforms and 
renounced so many oppressive prerogatives, did the 
parliament continue to rise in their demands at the risk 
of provoking a civil war ? The ship-money had been lo 
given up, the Star Chamber had been abolished, pro- 
vision had been made for the frequent convocation and 
secure deliberation of parliaments. Why not pursue an 
end confessedly good by peaceable and regular means ? 
We recur again to the analogy of the Revolution. Why 16 
was James driven from the throne ? Why was he not 
retained upon conditions ? He too had offered to call 
a free parliament, and to submit to its decision all the 
matters in dispute. Yet we are in the habit of praising 
our forefathers, who preferred a revolution, a disputed 20 
succession, a dynasty of strangers, twenty years of for- 
eign and intestine war, a standing army, and a national 
debt, to the rule, however restricted, of a tried and 
proved tyrant. The Long Parliament acted on the same 
principle, and is entitled to the same praise. They 25 
could not trust the king. He had, no doubt, passed 
salutary laws ; but what assurance was there that he 
would not break them ? He had renounced oppressive 
prerogatives; but where was the security that he would 
not resume them ? The nation had to deal with a man 



48 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

whom no tie could bind, a man who made and broke 
promises with equal facility, a man whose honor had 
been a hundred times pawned, and never redeemed. 
Here, indeed, the Long Parliament stands on still 
5 stronger ground than the Convention of 1688. No 
action of James can be compared to the conduct of 
Charles with respect to the Petition of Right. The 
Lords and Commons present him with a bill in which 
the constitutional limits of his power are marked out. 

10 He hesitates ; he evades ; at last he bargains to give his 
assent for five subsidies. The bill receives his solemn 
assent : the subsidies are voted ; but no sooner is the 
tyrant relieved than he returns at once to all the arbi- 
trary measures which he had bound himself to abandon, 

15 and violates all the clauses of the very Act which he had 
been paid to pass. 

For more than ten years the people had seen the rights 
which were theirs by a double claim, by immemorial 
inheritance, and by recent purchase, infringed by the 

20 perfidious king who had recognized them. At length 
circumstances compelled Charles to summon another 
parliament. Another chance was given to our fathers : 
were they to throw it away as they had thrown away 
the former ? Were they again to be cozened by le Rol 

25 le veut ? Were they again to advance their money 
on pledges which had been forfeited over and over 
again ? Were they to lay a second Petition of Right at 
the foot of the throne, to grant another lavish aid in 
exchange for another unmeaning ceremonj^, and then to 
take tlieir departure, till, after ten years more of fraud 



MILTON. 49 

and oppression, their prince should again require a sup- 
ply, and again repay it with a perjury ? They were 
compelled to choose whether they would trust a tyrant 
or conquer him ? We think that they chose wisely and 
nobly. 5 

The advocates of Charles, like the advocates of other 
malefactors against whom overwhelming evidence is 
produced, generally decline all controversy about the 
facts, and content themselves with calling testimony to 
character. He had so many private virtues ! And had lo 
James the Second no private virtues ? Was Oliver 
Cromwell, his bitterest enemies themselves being judges, 
destitute of private virtues ? And what, after all, are 
the virtues ascribed to Charles ? A religious zeal, not 
more sincere than that of his son, and fully as weak and 15 
narrow-minded, and a few of the ordinary household 
decencies which half the tombstones in England claim 
for tliose who lie beneath them. A good father! A good 
husband ! Ample apologies indeed for fifteen years of 
persecution, tyranny, and falsehood ! 20 

We charge him with having broken his coronation 
oath ; and we are told that he kept his marriage vow ! 
We accuse him of having given up his people to the 
merciless inflictions of the most hot-headed and hard- 
hearted of prelates ; and the defence is that he took his 25 
little son on his knee, and kissed him ! We censure him 
for having violated the articles of the Petition of Right, 
after having, for good and valuable consideration, prom- 
ised to observe them ; and we are informed that he was 
accustomed to hear prayers at six o'clock in the morning ! 



50 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

It is to such considerations as these, together with his 
Vandyke dress, his handsome face, and his peaked beard, 
that he owes, we verily believe, most of his popularity 
with the present generation. 
5 For ourselves, we own that we do not understand the 
common phrase, "a good man, but a bad king." We can 
as easily conceive a good man and an unnatural father, 
or a good man and a treacherous friend. We cannot, in 
estimating the character of an individual, leave out of 

10 our consideration his conduct in the most important of 
all human relations ; and if in that relation we find him 
to have been selfish, cruel, and deceitful, we shall take 
the liberty to call him a bad man, in spite of all his 
temperance at table, and all his regularity at chapel. 

15 We cannot refrain from adding a few words respecting 
a topic on which the defenders of Charles are fond of 
dwelling. If, they say, he governed his people ill, he at 
least governed them after the example of his predeces- 
sors. If he violated their privileges, it was because 

20 those privileges had not been accurately defined. No 
act of oppression has ever been imputed to him which 
has not a parallel in the annals of the Tudors. This 
point Hume has labored, with an art which is as dis- 
creditable in a historical work as it would be admirable 

25 in a forensic address. The answer is short, clear, and 
decisive. Charles had assented to the Petition of Right. 
He had renounced the oppressive powers said to have 
been exercised by his predecessors, and he had renounced 
them for money. He was not entitled to set up his 
antiquated claims against his own recent release. 



MILTON. 61 

These arguments are so obvious that it may seem 
superfluous to dwell upon them; but those who have 
observed how much the events of that time are mis- 
represented and misunderstood, will not blame us for 
stating the case simply. It is a case of which the 5 
simplest statement is the strongest. 

The enemies of the Parliament, indeed, rarely choose 
to take issue on the great points of the question. 
They content themselves with exposing some of the 
crimes and follies to which public commotions neces- lo 
sarily give birth. They bewail the unmerited fate of 
Strafford. They execrate the lawless violence of the 
army. They laugh at the Scriptural names of the 
preachers. Major-generals fleecing their districts ; sol- 
diers revelling on the spoils of a ruined peasantry ; 15 
upstarts, enriched by the public plunder, taking pos- 
session of the hospitable firesides and hereditary trees 
of the old gentry ; boys smashing the beautiful windows 
of cathedrals ; Quakers riding naked through the mar- 
ket-place ; Fifth-monarchy men shouting for King Jesus ; 20 
agitators lecturing from the tops of tubs on the fate of 
Agag ; — all these, they tell us, were the offspring of the 
Great Rebellion. 

Be it so. We are not careful to answer in this matter. 
These charges, were they infinitely more important, 25 
would not alter our opinion of an event which alone has 
made us to differ from the slaves who crouch beneath 
despotic sceptres. Many evils, no doubt, were produced 
by the civil war. They were the price of our liberty. 
Has the acquisition been worth the sacrifice ? It is the 



52 MACAULAY'S ESSAY». 

nature of the devil of tyrauuy to tear aud rend the body 
which he leaves. Are the miseries of continued posses- 
sion less horrible than the struggles of the tremendous 
exorcism ? 

5 If it were possible that a people brought up under an 
intolerant and arbitrary system could subvert that system 
without acts of cruelty and folly, half the objections to 
despotic power would be removed. We should, in that 
case, be compelled to acknowledge that it at least pro- 

10 duces no pernicious effects on the intellectual and moral 
character of a nation. We deplore the outrages which 
accompany revolutions. But the more violent the out- 
rages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was 
necessary. The violence of those outrages will always 

15 be proportioned to the ferocity and ignorance of the 
people, and the ferocity and ignorance of the people will 
be proportioned to the oppression and degradation under 
which they have been accustomed to live. Thus it was 
in our civil war. The heads of the church and state 

20 reaped only that which they had sown. The government 
had prohibited free discussion ; it had done its best to 
keep the people unacquainted with their duties and their 
rights. The retribution was just and natural. If our 
rulers suffered from popular ignorance, it was because 

25 they had themselves taken away the key of knowledge. 
If they were assailed with blind fury, it was because 
they had exacted an equally blind submission. 

It is the character of such revolutions that we always 
see the worst of them first. Till men have been some 
time free, they know not how to use their freedom. The 



MILTON. 53 

natives of wine countries are generally sober. In cli- 
mates where wine is a rarity intemperance abounds. A 
newly liberated people may be compared to a northern 
army encamped on the Ehine or the Xeres. It is said 
that, when soldiers in such a situation first find them- 5 
selves able to indulge without restraint in such a rare 
and expensive luxury, nothing is to be seen but intoxi- 
cation. Soon, however, plenty teaches discretion, and, 
after wine has been for a few months their daily fare, 
they become more temperate than they had ever been in 10 
their own country. In the same manner, the final and 
permanent fruits of liberty are wisdom, moderation, and 
mercy. Its immediate effects are often atrocious crimes, 
conflicting errors, scepticism on points the most clear, 
dogmatism on points the most mysterious. It is just at 15 
this crisis that its enemies love to exhibit it. They 
pull down the scaffolding from the half-finished edifice ; 
they point to the flying dust, the falling bricks, the com- 
fortless rooms, the frightful irregularity of the whole 
appearance ; and then ask in scorn where the promised 20 
splendor and comfort is to be found. If such miserable 
sophisms were to prevail there would never be a good 
house or a good government in the world. 

Ariosto tells a pretty story of a fairy, who, by some 
mysterious law of her nature, was Condemned to appear 25 
at certain seasons in the form of a foul and poisonous 
snake. Those who injured her during the period of her 
disguise were forever excluded from participation in the 
blessings which she bestowed. But to those who, in 
spite of her loathsome aspect, pitied and protected her, 



54 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

she afterwards revealed herself in the beautiful and 
celestial form which was natural to her; accompanied 
their steps, granted all their wishes, filled their houses 
with wealth, made them happy in love and victorious in 

5 war. Such a spirit is Liberty. At times she takes the 
form of a hateful reptile. She grovels, she hisses, she 
stings. But woe to those who in disgust shall venture 
to crush her ! And happy are those who, having dared 
to receive her in her degraded and frightful shape, shall 

10 at length be rewarded by her in the time of her beauty 
and lier glory ! 

There is only one cure for the evils which newly 
acquired freedom produces ; and that cure is freedom. 
When a prisoner first leaves his cell lie cannot bear the 

15 light of day ; he is unable to discriminate colors, or rec- 
ognize faces. But the remedy is, not to remand him into 
his dungeon, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. 
The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and 
bewilder nations which have become half blind in the 

20 house of bondage. But let them gaze on, and they will 
soon be able to bear it. In a few years men learn to 
reason. The extreme violence of opinion subsides. 
Hostile theories correct each other. The scattered ele- 
ments of truth cease to contend, and begin to coalesce. 

25 And at length a system of justice and order is educed 
out of the chaos. 

Many politicians of our time are in the habit of laying 
it down as a self-evident proposition, that no people 
ought to be free till they are fit to use their freedom. 
The maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who 



MILTON. 65 

resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to 
swim. If men are to wait for liberty till they become 
wise and good in slavery, they may indeed wait forever. 
Therefore it is that we decidedly approve of the con- 
duct of Milton and the other wise and good men who, 5 
in spite of much that was ridiculous and hateful in the 
conduct of their associates, stood firmly by the cause of 
public liberty. We are not aware that the poet has been 
charged with personal participation in any of the blam- 
able excesses of that time. The favorite topic of his lo 
enemies is the line of conduct which he pursued with 
regard to the execution of the king. Of that celebrated y^ 
proceeding we by no means approve. Still we must 
say, in justice to the many eminent persons who con- 
curred in it, and in justice more particularly to the emi- 15 
nent person who defended it, that nothing can be more 
absurd than the imputations which, for the last hundred 
and sixty years, it has been the fashion to cast upon the 
Regicides. We have, throughout, abstained from ap- 
pealing to iirst principles. We will not appeal to them 20 
now. We recur again to the parallel case of the Revo- 
lution. What essential distinction can be drawn between 
the execution of the father and the deposition of the 
son ? What constitutional maxim is there which applies 
to the former and not to the latter ? The king can do 25 
no wrong. If so, James was as innocent as Charles 
could have been. The minister only ought to be respon- 
sible for the acts of the sovereign. If so, why not im- 
peach Jeffreys and retain James ? The person of a king 
is sacred. Was the person of James considered sacred 



y 



56 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

at the Boyne ? To discharge cannon against an army 
in which a king is known to be posted is to approach 
pretty near to regicide. Charles, too, it should always 
be remembered, was put to death by men who had been 

5 exasj)erated by the hostilities of several years, and who 
had never been bound to him by any other tie than that 
which was common to them with all their fellow-citizens. 
Those who drove James from his throne, who seduced 
his army, who alienated his friends, who first imprisoned 

10 him in his palace, and then turned him out of it, who 
broke in upon his very slumbers by imperious messages, 
who pursued him with fire and sword from one part of 
the empire to another, who hanged, drew, and quartered 
his adherents, and attainted his innocent heir, were his 

15 nephew and his two daughters. When we reflect on all 
these things, we are at a loss to conceive how the same 
persons who, on the fifth of November, thank God for 
wonderfully conducting his servant William, and for 
making all opposition fall before him until he became 

20 our king and governor, can, on the thirteenth of January, 
contrive to be afraid that the blood of the Koyal Martyr 
may be visited on themselves and their children. 

\y We disapprove, we repeat, of the execution of Charles ; 
not because the constitution exempts the king from 

25 responsibility, for we know that all such maxims, how- 
ever excellent, have their exceptions ; not because we 
feel any particular interest in his character, for we think 
that his sentence describes him with perfect justice as a 
"tyrant, a traitor, a murderer, and a public enemy;" 
but because we are convinced that the measure was most 



MILTON. 57 

injurious to the cause of freedom. He whom it removed 
was a captive and a hostage : his heir, to whom the alle- 
giance of every Koyalist was instantly transferred, was 
at large. The Presbyterians could never have been per- 
fectly reconciled to the father ; they had no such rooted 5 
enmity to the son. The great body of the people, also, 
contemplated that proceeding with feelings which, how- 
ever unreasonable, no government could safely venture 
to outrage. 

But though we think the conduct of the Regicides lo 
blamable, that of Milton appears to us in a very differ- 
ent light. The deed was done. It could not be undone. 
The evil was incurred; and the object was to render it 
as small as possible. We censure the chiefs of the army 
for not yielding to the popular opinion ; but we cannot 15 
censure Milton for wishing to change that opinion. The 
very feeling which would have restrained us from com- 
mitting the act, would have led us, after it had been 
committed, to defend it against the ravings of servility 
and superstition. For the sake of public liberty we 20 
wish that the thing had not been done while the people 
disapproved of it. But, for the sake of public liberty, 
we should also have wished the people to approve of it 
when it was done. If anything more were wanting to 
the justification of Milton, the book of Salmasius 25 
would furnish it. That miserable performance is now 
with justice considered only as a beacon to word-catchers 
who wish to become statesmen. The celebrity of the 
man who refuted it, the " ^neae magni dextra," gives it 
all its fame with the present generation. In that age 



58 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

the state of things was different. It was not then fully 
understood how vast an interval separates the mere 
classical scholar from the political philosopher. Nor can 
it be doubted that a treatise which, bearing the name of 

5 so eminent a critic, attacked the fundamental principles 
of all free governments, miist, if suffered to remain unan- 
swered, have produced a most pernicious effect oh the 
public mind. 

We wish to add a few words relative to another sub- 

10 ject, on which the enemies of Milton delight to dwell, 
— his conduct during the administration of the Protector. 
That an enthusiastic votary of liberty should accept 
office under a military usurper seems, no doubt, at first 
sight, extraordinary. But all the circumstances in which 

15 the country was then placed were extraordinary. The 
ambition of Oliver was of no vulgar kind. He never 
seems to have coveted despotic power. He at first 
fought sincerely and manfully for the Parliament, and 
never deserted it till it had deserted its dv;ty. If he 

20 dissolved it by force, it was not till he found that the 
few members who remained after so many deaths, seces- 
sions, and expulsions, were desirous to appropriate to 
themselves a power which they held only in trust, and 
to inflict upon England the curse of a Venetian oligarchy. 

25 But even when thus placed by violence at the head of 
affairs, he did not assume unlimited power. He gave 
the country a constitution far more perfect than any 
which had at that time been known in the world. He 
reformed the representative system in a manner which 
has extorted praise even from Lord Clarendon. For 



MILTON. 59 

himself he demanded indeed the first place in the com- 
monwealth ; but with powers scarcely so great as those 
of a Dutch stadtholder or an American president. He 
gave the parliament a voice in the appointment of min- 
isters, and left to it the whole legislative authority, not 5 
even reserving to himself a veto on its enactments ; and 
he did not require that the chief magistracy should be 
hereditary in his family. Thus far, we think, if the 
circumstances of the time and tlie opportunities which 
he had of aggrandizing himself be fairly considered, he lo 
will not lose by comparison with Washington or Bolivar. 
Had his moderation been met by corresponding modera- 
tion, there is no reason to think that he would have over- 
stepped the line wliich he had traced for himself. But 
when he found that his parliaments questioned the 15 
authority under which they met, and that he was in 
danger of being deprived of the restricted power which 
was absolutely necessary to his personal safety, then it 
must be acknowledged he adopted a more arbitrary 
policy. " 20 

Yet, though we believe that the intentions of Crom- 
well were at first honest, though we believe that he was 
driven from the noble course which he had marked out 
for himself by the almost irresistible force of circum- 
stances, though we admire, in common with all men of 25 
all parties, the ability and energy of his splendid admin- 
istration, we are not pleading for arbitrary and lawless 
power, even in his hands. We know that a good con- 
stitution is infinitely better than the best despot. But 
we suspect, that at the time of which we speak, the vio- 



60 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

lence of religious and political enmities rendered a stable 
and happy settlement next to impossible. The choice 
lay, not between Cromwell and liberty, but between 
Cromwell and the Stuarts. That Milton chose well no 

5 man can doubt who fairly compares the events of the 
protectorate with those of the thirty years which suc- 
ceeded it, the darkest and most disgraceful in the Eng- 
lish annals. Cromwell was evidently laying, though in 
an irregular manner, the foundations of an admirable 

10 system. Never before had religious liberty and the 
freedom of discussion been enjoyed in a greater degree. 
Never had the national honor been better upheld abroad, 
or the seat of justice better filled at home. And it was 
rarely that any opposition which stopped short of open 

15 rebellion provoked the resentment of the liberal and 
magnanimous usurper. The institutions which he had 
established, as set down in the Instrument of Govern- 
ment and the Humble Petition and Advice, were excel- 
lent. His practice, it is true, too often departed from 

20 the theory of these institutions. But had he lived 
a few years longer, it is probable that his institutions 
would have survived him, and that his arbitrary practice 
would have died with him. His power had not been 
consecrated by ancient prejudices. It was upheld only 

25 by his great personal qualities. Little, therefore, was 
to be dreaded from a second protector, unless he were 
also a second Oliver Cromwell. The events which fol- 
lowed his decease are the most complete vindication of 
those who exerted themselves to uphold his authority. 
His death dissolved the whole frame of society. The 



MILTON. 61 

army rose against the parliament, the different corps of 
the army against each other. Sect raved against sect. 
Party plotted against party. The Presbyterians, in their 
eagerness to be revenged on the Independents, sacrificed 
their own liberty, and deserted all their old principles. 5 
Without casting one glance on the past, or requiring one 
stipulation for the future, they threw down their free- 
dom at the feet of the most frivolous and heartless of 
tyrants. 

Then came those days, never to be recalled without a 10 
blush, the days of servitude without loyalty, and sen- 
suality without love ; of dwarfish talents and gigantic 
vices ; the paradise of cold hearts and narrow minds ; the 
golden age of the coward, the bigot, and the slave. The 
king cringed to his rival that he might trample on his 15 
people, sank into a viceroy of Prance, and pocketed with 
complacent infamy her degrading insults and her more 
degrading gold. The caresses of harlots, and the jests 
of buffoons, regulated the policy of the state. The gov- 
ernment had just ability enough to deceive, and just 20 
religion enough to persecute. The principles of liberty 
were the scoff of every grinning courtier, and the Anath- 
ema Maranatha of every fawning dean. In every hign 
place, worship was paid to Charles and James, Belial 
and Moloch ; and England propitiated those obscene and 25 
cruel idols with the blood of her best and bravest chil- 
dren. Crime succeeded to crime, and disgrace to dis- 
grace, till the race, accursed of God and man, was a second 
time driven forth, to wander on the face of the earth, 
and to be a by -word and a shaking of the head to the 
nations. 



62 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Most of the remarks which we have hitherto made on 
the public character of Milton, apply to him only as one 
of a large body. We shall proceed to notice some of the 
peculiarities which distinguished him from his contem- 

5 poraries. And for that purpose it is necessary to take a 
short survey of the parties into which the political world 
was at that time divided. We must premise that our 
observations are intended to apply only to those who 
adhered, from a sincere preference, to one or to the other 

10 side. In days of public commotion every faction, like 
an Oriental army, is attended by a crowd of camp-fol- 
lowers, a useless and heartless rabble, who prowl round 
its line of march in the hoj)e of picking up something 
under its protection, but desert it in the day of battle, 

15 and often join to exterminate it after a defeat. England, 
at the time of which we are treating, abounded with fickle 
and selfish politicians, who transferred their support to 
every government as it rose ; who kissed the hand of the 
king in 1640, and spat in his face in 1649 ; who shouted 

20 with equal glee when Cromwell was inaugurated in 
Westminster Hall, and when he was dug up to be 
hanged at Tyburn ; who dined on calves' heads, or stuck 
up oak-branches, as circumstances altered, without the 
slightest shame or repugnance. These we leave out of 

25 the account. We take our estimate of parties from those 
who really deserve to be called partisans. 

We would speak first of the Puritans, the most remark- 
able body of men, perhaps, which the world has ever 
produced. The odious and ridiculous parts of their 
character lie on the surface. He that runs may read 



MILTON. 63 

them ; nor have there beeu wanting attentive and mali- 
cious observers to point them out. For many years 
after the Restoration, they were the theme of unmeas- 
ured invective and derision. They were exposed to the 
utmost licentiousness of the press and of the stage, at 5 
the time when the press and the stage were most licen- 
tious. They were not men of letters ; they were, as a 
body, unpopular ; they could not defend themselves ; and 
the public would not take them under its protection. 
They were therefore abandoned, without reserve, to the 10 
tender mercies of the satirists and dramatists. The 
ostentatious simplicity of their dress, their sour aspect, 
their nasal twang, their stiff posture, their long graces, 
their Hebrew names, the Scriptural phrases which they 
introduced on every occasion, their contempt of human 15 
learning, their detestation of polite amusements, were 
indeed fair game for the laughers. But it is not from 
the laughers alone that the philosophy of history is to 
be learned. And he who approaches this subject should 
carefully guard against the influence of that potent rid- 20 
icule which has already misled so many excellent writers. 

"Ecco il fonte del riso, eel ecco il rio 
Che mortali perigli in se contiene : 
Hor qui tener a fren nostro desio, 
Ed esser cauti molto a noi convieue." 

Those who roused the people to resistance ; who di- 
rected their measures through a long series of eventful 
years ; who formed, out of the most unpromising mate- 
rials, the finest army that Europe had ever seen ; who 



64 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

trampled down king, church, and aristocracy ; who, in 
the short intervals of domestic sedition and rebellion, 
made the name of England terrible to every nation on 
the face of the earth, were no vulgar fanatics. Most 
5 of their absurdities were mere external badges, like 
the signs of freemasonry, or the dresses of friars. We 
regret that these badges were not more attractive. We 
regret that a body to whose courage and talents mankind 
has owed inestimable obligations had not the lofty ele- 

10 gance which distinguished some of the adherents of 
Charles the First, or the easy good-breeding for which 
the court of Charles the Second was celebrated. But, if 
we must make our choice, we shall, like Bassanio in the 
play, turn from the specious caskets which contain only 

15 the Death's head and the Fool's head, and fix on the 
plain leaden chest which conceals the treasure. 

The Puritans were men whose minds had derived a 
peculiar character from the daily contemplation of supe- 
rior beings and eternal interests, Not content with ac- 

20 knowledging in general terms, an overruling Providence, 
they habitually ascribed every event to the will of the 
Great Being, for whose power nothing was too vast, for 
whose inspection nothing was too minute. To know 
him, to serve him, to enjoy him, was with them the 

25 great end of existence. They rejected with contempt 
the ceremonious hoinage which other sects substituted 
for the pure worship of the soul. Instead of catching 
occasional glimpses of the Deity through an obscuring 
veil, they aspired to gaze full on his intolerable bright- 
ness, and to commune with him face to face. Hence 



MILTON. 65 

originated their contempt for terrestrial distinctions. 
The difference between the greatest and the meanest of 
mankind seemed to vanish, when compared with the 
boundless interval which separated the whole race from 
him on whom their own eyes were constantly fixed. 5 
They recognized no title to superiority but his favor ; 
and, confident of that favor, they despised all the accom- 
plishments and all the dignities of the world. If they 
were unacquainted with the works of philosophers and 
poets, they were deeply read in the oracles of God. If lo 
their names were not found in the registers of heralds, , 
they were recorded in the Book of Life. If their steps 
were not accompanied by a splendid train of menials, 
legions of ministering angels had charge over them. 
Their palaces were houses not made with hands ; their 15 
diadems crowns of glory which should never fade away. 
On the rich and the eloquent, on nobles and priests, they 
looked down with contempt ; for they esteemed them- 
selves rich in a more precious treasure, and eloquent in 
a more sublime language, nobles by the right of an ear- 20 
lier creation, and priests by the imposition of a mightier 
hand. The very meanest of them was a being to whose 
fate a mysterious and terrible- importance belonged, on 
whose slightest action the spirits of light and darkness 
looked with anxious interest ; who had been destined, 25 
before heaven and earth were created, to enjoy a felicity 
which should continue when heaven and earth should 
have passed away. Events which short-sighted politi- 
cians ascribed to earthly causes, had been ordained on 
his account. For his sake empires had risen, and flour- 



66 - MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

ished, and decayed. For his sake the Almighty had pro- 
claimed his will by the pen of the Evangelist and the 
harp of the prophet. He had been wrested by no com- 
mon deliverer from the grasp of no common foe. He 

5 had been ransomed by the sweat of no vulgar agony, by 
the blood of no earthly sacrifice. It was for him that 
the sun had been darkened, that the rocks had been rent, 
that the dead had risen, that all nature had shuddered 
at the sufferings of her expiring God. 

10 Thus the Puritan was made up of two different men, 
the one all self-abasement, penitence, gratitude, passion ; 
the other proud, calm, inflexible, sagacious. He pros- 
trated himself in the dust before his Maker ; but he set 
his foot on the neck of his king. In his devotional re- 

15 tirement, he prayed with convulsions, and groans, and 
tears. He was half maddened by glorious or terrible 
illusions. He heard the lyres of angels or the tempting 
whispers of fiends. He caught a gleam of the Beatific 
Vision, or woke screaming from dreams of everlasting 

20 fire. Like Vane, he thought himself intrusted with 
the sceptre of the millennial year. Like Fleetwood, he 
cried in the bitterness of his soul that God had hid his 
face from him. But when he took his seat in the coun- 
cil, or girt on his sword for war, these tempestuous 

25 workings of the soul had left no perceptible trace behind 
them. People who saw nothing of the godly but their 
uncouth visages, and heard nothing from them but their 
groans and their whining hymns, might laugli at them. 
But those had little reason to laugh who encountered 
them in the hall of debate or in the field of battle. These 



MILTON. 67 

fanatics brought to civil and military affairs a coolness 
of judgment and an immutability of purpose which some 
writers have thought inconsistent with their religious 
zeal, but which were in fact the necessary effects of it. 
The intensity of their feelings on one subject made them 5 
tranquil on every other. One over-powering sentiment 
had subjected to itself pity and hatred, ambition and 
fear. Death had lost its terrors and pleasure its charms. 
They had their smiles and their tears, their raptures and 
their sorrows, but not for the things of this world. 10 
Enthusiasm had made them stoics, had cleared their 
minds from every vulgar passion and prejudice, and 
raised them above the influence of danger and of corrup- 
tion. It sometimes might lead them to pursue unwise 
ends, but never to choose unwise means. They went 15 
through the world, like Sir Artegal's iron man Talus 
with his flail, crushing and trampling down oppressors, 
mingling with human beings, but having neither part nor 
lot in human infirmities ; insensible to fatigue, to pleas- 
ure, and to pain ; not to be pierced by any weapon, not 20 
to be withstood by any barrier. 

Such we believe to have been the character of the 
Puritans. We perceive the absurdity of their manners. 
We dislike the sullen gloom of their domestic habits. 
We acknowledge that the tone of their minds was often 25 
injured by straining after things too high for mortal 
reach ; and we know that, in spite of their hatred of 
Popery, they too often fell into the worst vices of that 
bad system, intolerance and extravagant austerity ; that 
they had their anchorites and their crusades, their 



68 macaulay's essays. 

Dunstans and their De Montforts, their Dominies and 
their Escobars. Yet, when all circumstances are taken 
into consideration, we do not hesitate to pronounce them 
a brave, a wise, an honest, and a useful body. 

5 'xhe Puritans espoused the cause of civil liberty 
mainly because it was the cause of religion. - ' There was 
another party, by no means numerous, but distinguished 
by learning and ability, which acted with them on very 
different principles. We speak of those whom Crom- 

10 well was accustomed to call the Heathens, men who 
were, in the phraseology of that time, doubting Thomases 
or careless Galiios with regard to religious subjects, but 
passionate worshippers of freedom. Heated by the 
study of ancient literature, they set up their country as 

15 their idol, and proposed to themselves the heroes of 
Plutarch as their examples. They seem to have borne 
some resemblance to the Brissotines of the French Eevo- 
lution. But it is not very easy to draw the line of dis- 
tinction between them and their devout associates, whose 

20 tone and manner they sometimes found it convenient to 
affect, and sometimes, it is probable, imperceptibly 
adopted. 

We now come to the Royalists. We shall attempt to 
speak of them, as we have spoken of their antagonists, 

25 with perfect candor. We shall not charge upon a whole 
party the profligacy and baseness of the horse-boys, 
gamblers, and bravoes, whom the hope of license and 
plunder attracted from all the dens of Whitefriars to 
the standard of Charles, and who disgraced their asso- 
ciates by excesses which, under the stricter discipline of 



MILTON. 69 

the parliamentary armies, were never tolerated. We will 
select a more favorable specimen. Thinking as we do 
that the cause of the king was the cause of bigotry and 
tyranny, we yet cannot refrain from looking with com- 
placency on the character of the honest old Cavaliers. 5 
We feel a national pride in comparing them with the 
instruments which the despots of other countries are 
compelled to employ, with the mutes who throng their 
antechambers, and the Janissaries who mount guard at 
their gates. Our royalist countrymen were not heartless, 10 
dangling courtiers, bowing at every step, and simpering 
at every word. They were not mere machines for de- 
struction, dressed up in uniforms, caned into skill, 
intoxicated into valor, defending without love, destroy- 
ing without hatred. There was a freedom in their sub- 15 
serviency, a nobleness in their very degradation. The 
sentiment of individual independence was strong within 
them. They were indeed misled, but by no base or 
selfish motive. Compassion and romantic honor, the 
prejudices of childhood, and the venerable names of his- 20 
tory, threw over them a spell potent as that of Duessa ; 
and, like the Ked-Cross Knight, they thought that they 
were doing battle for an injured beauty, while they 
defended a false and loathsome sorceress. In truth, 
they scarcely entered at all into the merits of the politi- 25 
cal question. It was not for a treacherous king or an 
intolerant church that they fought, but for the old ban- 
ner which had waved in so many battles over the heads 
of their fathers, and for the altars at which they had 
received the hands of their brides. Thougfh nothing: 



70 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

could be more erroneous than their political opinions, 
they possessed, in a far greater degree than their adver- 
saries, those qualities which are the grace of private 
life. With many of the vices of the Kouud Table, they 

5 had also many of its virtues, — courtesy, generosity, ve- 
racity, tenderness, and respect for women. They had far 
more both of profound and of polite learning than the 
Puritans. Their manners were more engaging, their 
tempers mor^ amiable, their tastes more elegant, and 

10 their households more cheerful. 

Milton did not strictly belong to any of the classes 
which we have described. He was not a Puritan. He 
was not a free-thinker. He was not a Royalist. In his 
character the noblest qualities of every party were com- 

15 bined in harmonious union. From the parliament and 
from the court, from the conventicle and from the Gothic 
cloister, from the gloomy and sepulchral circles of the 
Roundheads, and from the Christmas revel of the hos- 
pitable Cavalier, his nature selected and drew to itself 

20 whatever was great and good, while it rejected all the 
base and pernicious ingredients by which those finer 
elements were defiled. Like the Puritans, he lived — 

" As ever in his great task-master's eye." 

Like them, he kept his mind continually fixed on an 
Almighty Judge and an eternal reward. And hence he 
25 acquired their contempt of external circumstances, theit 
fortitude, their tranquillity, their inflexible resolution. 
But not the coolest sceptic or the most profane scoffer 



MILTON. 71 

was more perfectly free from the contagion of their 
fanatic delusions, their savage manners, their ludicrous 
jargon, their scorn of science, and their aversion to 
pleasure. Hating tyranny with a perfect hatred, he had 
nevertheless all the estimable and ornamental qualities 5 
which were almost entirely monopolized by the party of 
the tyrant. There was none who had a stronger sense 
of the value of literature, a finer relish for every elegant 
amusement, or a more chivalrous delicacy of honor and 
love. Though his opinions were democratic, his tastes 10 
and his associations were such as harmonize best with 
monarchy and aristocracy. He was under the influence 
of all the feelings by which the gallant Cavaliers were 
misled. But of those feelings he was the master and 
not the slave. Like the hero of Homer, he enjoyed 15 
all the pleasures of fascination ; but he was not fascin- 
ated. He listened to the song of the Sirens ; yet he 
glided by without being seduced to their fatal shore. 
He tasted the cup of Circe ; but he bore about him a 
sure antidote against the effects of its bewitching sweet- 20 
ness. The illusions which captivated liis imagination 
never impaired his reasoning powers. The statesman 
was proof against the splendor, the solemnity, and the 
romance which enchanted the poet. Any person who 
will contrast the sentiments expressed in his treatises 25 
on Prelacy with the exquisite lines on ecclesiastical 
architecture and music in the "Penseroso," which was 
published about the same time, will understand our 
meaning. This is an inconsistency which, more than 
anything else, raises his character in our estimation, 



72 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

because it shows how many private tastes and feelings 
he sacrificed, in order to do what he considered his duty 
to mankind. It is tlie very struggle of the noble Othello. 
His heart relents ; but his hand is firm. He does naught 

5 in hate, but all in honor. He kisses the beautiful de- 
ceiver before he destroys her. 

That from which the public character of Milton de- 
rives its great and peculiar splendor, still remains to be 
mentioned. If he exerted himself to overthrow a for- 

10 sworn king and a persecuting hierarchy, he exerted him. 
self in onj unction with others. But the glory of the 
battle which he fought for the species of freedom which 
is the most valuable, and which was then the least 
understood, the freedom of the human mind, is all his 

15 own. Thousands and tens of thousands among his con- 
temporaries raised their voices against ship-money and 
the Star Chamber. But there were few indeed who dis- 
cerned the more fearful evils of moral and intellectual 
slavery, and the benefits which would result from the 

20 liberty of the press and the unfettered exercise of pri- 
vate judgment. These were the objects which Milton 
justly conceived to be the most important. He was 
desirous that the people should think for themselves as 
well as tax themselves, and should be emancipated from 

25 the dominion of prejudice as well as from that of Charles. 
He knew that those who, with the best intentions, over- 
looked these schemes of reform, and contented them- 
selves with pulling down the king and imprisoning the 
malignants, acted like the heedless brothers in his own 
poem, who, in their eagerness to disperse the train of 



MILTON. 73 

the sorcerer, neglected the means of liberating the cap- 
tive. They tliought only of conquering when they 
should have thought of disenchanting. 

''Oh, ye mistook! Ye should have snatched his wand 
And bound him fast. Without the rod reversed, 
And backward mutters of dissevering power, 
We cannot free the lady that sits here 
In stony fetters fixed and motionless." 

To reverse the rod, to spell the charm backward, to 
break the ties which bound a stupefied people to the seat 5 
of enchantment, was the noble aim of Milton. To this 
all his public conduct was directed. For this he joined 
the Presbyterians ; for this he forsook them. He fought 
their perilous battle ; but he turned away with disdain 
from their insolent triumph. He saw that they, like 10 
those whom they had vanquished, were hostile to the 
liberty of thought. He therefore joined the Indepen- 
dents, and called upon Cromwell to break the secular 
chain, and to save free conscience from the paw of the 
Presbyterian wolf. With a view to the same great ob- 15 
ject, he attacked the licensing system, in that sublime 
treatise which every statesman should wear as a sign 
upon his hand and as frontlets between his eyes. His 
attacks were, in general, directed less against particular 
abuses than against those deeply seated errors on which 20 
almost all abuses are founded, the servile worship of 
eminent men and the irrational dread of innovation. 

That he might shake the foundations of these debas- 
ing sentiments more effectually, he always selected for 



74 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

himself the boldest literary services. He never came 
up in the rear, when the outworks had been carried and 
the breach entered. He pressed into the forlorn hope. 
At the beginning of the changes, he wrote with incom- 
5 parable energy and eloquence against the bishops. But, 
when his opinion seemed likely to prevail, he passed on 
to other subjects, and abandoned prelacy to the crowd 
of writers who now hastened to insult a falling party. 
There is no more hazardous enterprise than that of bear- 

10 ing the torch of truth into those dark and infected 
recesses in which no light has ever shone. But it was 
the choice and the pleasure of Milton to penetrate the 
noisome vapors, and to brave the terrible explosion. 
Those who most disapprove of his opinions must respect 

15 the hardihood with which he maintained them. He, in 
general, left to others the credit of expounding and de- 
fending the popular parts of his religious and political 
creed. He took his own stand upon those which the 
great body of his countrymen reprobated as criminal, or 

20 derided as paradoxical. He stood up for divorce and 
regicide. He attacked the prevailing systems of educa- 
tion. His radiant and beneficent career resembled that 
of the god of light and fertility : — 

" Nitor in adversum; nee me, qui csetera, vincit 
Impetus, et rapido contraries evelior orbi." 

^^ It is to be regretted that the prose writings of Milton 

25 should, in our time, be so little read. As compositions, 

they deserve the attention of every man who wishes to 

become acquainted with the full power of the English 



MILTON. 76 

language. They abound with passages compared with 
which the finest declamations of Burke sink into insig- 
nificance. They are a perfect field of cloth of gold, y 
The style is stiff with gorgeous embroidery. Not even 
in the earlier books of the " Paradise Lost " has the great 5 
poet ever risen higher than in those parts of his contro- 
versial works in which his feelings, excited by conflict, 
find a vent in bursts of devotional and lyric rapture. It 
is, to borrow his own majestic language, "a sevenfold 
chorus of hallelujahs and harping symphonies." 10 

We had intended to look more closely at these per- 
formances, to analyze the peculiarities of the diction, to 
dwell at some length on the sublime wisdom of the 
Areopagitica and the nervous rhetoric of the Iconoclast, 
and to point out some of those magnificent passages 15 
which occur in the Treatise of Reformation, and the 
Animadversions on the Remonstrant. But the length 
to which our remarks have already extended renders this 
impossible. 

We must conclude. And yet we can scarcely tear our- 20 
selves away from the subject. The days immediately 
following the publication of this relic of Milton appear 
to be peculiarly set apart, and consecrated to his memory. 
And we shall scarcely be censured if, on this his festi- 
val, we be found lingering near his shrine, how worthless 25 
soever may be the offering which we bring to it. While 
this book lies on our table, we seem to be contempora- 
ries of the writer. We are transported a hundred and 
fifty years back. We can almost fancy that we are visit- 
ing him in his small lodging ; that we see him sitting at 



76 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

the old organ beneath the faded green hangings ; that we 
can catch the quick twinkle of his eyes, rolling in vain 
to find the day ; that we are reading in the lines of his 
noble countenance the proud and mournful history of 

5 his glory and his afB.iction. We image to ourselves the 
breathless silence in which we should listen to his slight- 
est word; the passionate veneration with which we 
should kneel to kiss his hand and weep upon it ; the 
earnestness with which we should endeavor to console 

10 him, if indeed such a spirit could need consolation, for 
the neglect of an age unworthy of his talents and his 
virtues ; the eagerness with which we should contest 
with his daughters, or with his Quaker friend Elwood, 
the privilege of reading Homer to him, or of taking down 

15 the immortal accents which flowed from his lips. 

These are perhaps foolish feelings. Yet we cannot be 
ashamed of them ; nor shall we be sorry if what we have 
written shall in any degree excite them in other minds. 
We are not much in the habit of idolizing either the liv- 

20 ing or the dead. And we think that there is no more 
certain indication of a weak and ill-regulated intellect 
than that propensity which, for want of a better name, 
we will venture to christen Boswellism. But there are 
a few characters which have stood the closest scrutiny 

25 and the severest tests, which have been tried in the fur- 
nace and have proved pure, which have been weighed in 
the balance and have not been found wanting, which 
have been declared sterling by the general consent of 
mankind, and which are visibly stamped with the image 
and superscription of the Most High. These great men 



MILTON. 77 

■we trust that we know how to prize ; and of these was 
Milton. The sight of his books, the sound of his name, 
are pleasant to us. His thoughts resemble those celes- 
tial fruits and flowers which the Virgin Martyr of Mas- 
singer sent down from the gardens of Paradise to the 5 
earth, and which were distinguished from the productions 
of other soils, not only by superior bloom and sweetness, 
but by miraculous efficacy to invigorate and to heal. 
They are powerful, not only to delight, but to elevate 
and purify. Nor do we envy the man who can study lo 
either the life or the writings of the great poet and 
patriot, without aspiring to emulate, not indeed the sub- 
lime works with which his genius has enriched our lit- 
erature, but the zeal with which he labored for the public 
good, the fortitude with which he endured every private 15 
calamity, the lofty disdain with which he looked down 
on temptations and dangers, the deadly hatred which he 
bore to bigots and tyrants, and the faith which he so 
sternly kept with his country and with his fame. 



THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON.^ 

(Edinburgh Review, July, ISJfS^ 



Some reviewers are of opinion that a lady who dares 
to publish a book renounces by that act the franchises 
appertaining to her sex, and can claim no exemption 
from the utmost rigor of critical procedure. From that 

5 opinion we dissent. We admit, indeed, that in a country 
which boasts of many female writers, eminently qualified 
by their talents and acquirements to influence the public 
mind, it would be of most pernicious consequence that 
inaccurate history or unsound philosophy should be suf- 

10 fered to pass uncensured, merely because the offender 
chanced to be a lady. But we conceive that, on such 
occasions, a critic would do well to imitate the courteous 
knight who found himself compelled by duty to keep 
the lists against Bradamante. He, we are told, defended 

15 successfully the cause of which he was the champion ; 
but before the fight began, exchanged Balisarda for a 
less deadly sword, of which he carefully blunted the 
point and edge. 

1 " The Life of Joseph Addison." By Lucy Aikin. 2 vols., 8vo. 
London. 1843. 

78 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 79 

Nor are the immunities of sex the only immunities 
which Miss Aikin may rightfully plead. Several of her 
works, and especially the very pleasing Memoirs of the 
Reign of James the First, have fully entitled her to the 
privileges enjoyed by good writers. One of those privi- 5 
leges we hold to be this, that such writers, when, either 
from the uulucky choice of a subject, or from the indo- 
lence too often produced by success, they happen to fail, 
shall not be subjected to the severe discipline which it is 
sometimes necessary to inflict upon dunces and impostors, lO 
but shall merely be reminded by a gentle touch, like 
that with which the Laputan flapper roused his dream- 
ing lord, that it is high time to wake. 

Our readers will probably infer from what we have 
said that Miss Aikin's book has disappointed us. The 15 
truth is, that she is not well acquainted with her subject. 
No person who is not familiar with the political and lit- 
erary history of England during the reigns of William 
the Third, of Anne, and of George the First, can possibly 
write a good life of Addison. Now, we mean no re- 20 
proach to Miss Aikin, and many will think that we pay 
her a compliment, when we say that her studies have 
taken a different direction. She is better acquainted 
with Shakespeare and Raleigh, than with Congreve and 
Prior ; and is far more at home among the ruffs and 25 
peaked beards of Theobald's than among the Steenkirks 
and flowing periwigs which surrounded Queen Anne's 
tea-table at Hampton. She seems to have written about 
the Elizabethan age, because she had read much about it ; 
she seems, on the other hand, to have read a little about 



80 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

the age of Addison, because she had determined to write 
about it. The consequence is that she has had to de- 
scribe men and things without having either a correct or 
a vivid idea of them, and that she has often fallen into 

5 errors of a very serious kind. The reputation which 
Miss Aikin has justly earned stands so high, and the 
charm of Addison's letters is so great, that a second edi- 
tion of this work may probably be required. If so, we 
hope that every paragraph will be revised, and that every 

10 date and fact about which there can be the smallest 
doubt will be carefully verified. 

To Addison himself we are bound by a sentiment as 
much like affection as any sentiment can be, which is 
inspired by one who has been sleeping a hundred and 

15 twenty years in Westminster Abbey. We trust, however, 
that this feeling will not betray us into that abject idol- 
atry which we have often had occasion to reprehend in 
others, and which seldom fails to make both the idolater 
and the idol ridiculous. A man of genius and virtue is 

20 but a man. All his powers cannot be equally developed ; 
nor can we expect from him perfect self-knowledge. We 
need not, therefore, hesitate to admit that Addison has 
left us some compositions which do not rise above medi- 
ocrity, some heroic poems hardly equal to Parnell's, 

25 some criticism as superficial as Dr. Blair's, and a tragedy 
not very much better than Dr. Johnson's. It is praise 
enough to say of a writer that, in a high department of 
literature, in which many eminent writers have distin- 
guished themselves, he has had no equal ; and this may 
with strict justice be said of Addison. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 81 

As a man, he may not have deserved the adoration 
which he received from those who, bewitched by his 
fascinating society, and indebted for all the comforts of 
life to his generous and delicate friendship, worshipped 
him nightly in his favorite temple at Button's, But, 5 
after full inquiry and impartial reflection, we have long 
been convinced that he deserved as much love and esteem 
as can be justly claimed by any of our infirm and erring 
race. Some blemishes may undoubtedly be detected in 
his character; but the more carefully it is examined, the 10 
more will it appear, to use the phrase of the old anato- 
mists, sound in the noble parts, free from all taint of per- 
fidy, of cowardice, of cruelty, of ingratitude, of envy. 
Men may easily be named in whom some particular good 
disposition has been more conspicuous than in Addison. 15 
But the just harmony of qualities, the exact temper 
between the stern and the humane virtues, the habitual 
observance of every law, not only of moral rectitude, but 
of moral grace and dignity, distinguish him from all 
men who have been tried by equally strong temptations, 20 
and about whose conduct we possess equally full infor- 
mation. 

His father was the Rev. Lancelot Addison, who, 
though eclipsed by his more celebrated son, made some 
figure in the world, and occupies with credit two folio 25 
pages in the " Biographia Britannica." Lancelot was sent 
up as a poor scholar from Westmoreland to Queen's Col- 
lege, Oxford, in the time of the Commonwealth ; made 
some progress in learning ; became, like most of his fel- 
low-students, a violent Royalist ; lampooned the heads of 



82 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

the university, and was forced to ask pardon on his 
bended knees. When he had left college he earned a 
humble subsistence by reading the liturgy of the fallen 
church to the families of those sturdy squires whose 
5 manor-houses were scattered over the Wild of Sussex. 
After the Restoration his loyalty was rewarded with the 
post of chaplain to the garrison of Dunkirk. When 
Dunkirk was sold to France he lost his employment. 
But Tangier had been ceded by Portugal to England as 
10 part of the marriage portion of the Infanta Catharine ; 
and to Tangier Lancelot Addison was sent. A more 
miserable situation can hardly be conceived. It was 
difficult to say whether the unfortunate settlers were 
more tormented by the heats or by the rains, by the soi- 
ls diers within the wall or by the Moors without it. One 
advantage the chaplain had. He enjoyed an excellent 
opportunity of studying the history and manners of 
Jews and Mahometans ; and of this opportunity he 
appears to have made excellent use. On his return to 
20 England, after some years of banishment, he published 
an interesting volume on the Polity and Religion of 
Barbary, and another on the Hebrew Customs and the 
State of Rabbinical Learning. He rose to eminence in 
his profession, and became one of the royal chaplains, a 
'.iS Doctor of Divinity, Archdeacon of Salisbury, and Dean 
of Lichfield. It is said that he would have been made 
a bishop after the Revolution if he had not given offence 
to the government by strenuously opposing, in the Con- 
vocation of 1689, the liberal policy of William and 
Tillotson. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 83 

In 1672, not long after Dr. Addison's return from 
Tangier, his son Joseph was born. Of Joseph's child- 
hood we know little. He learned his rudiments at 
schools in his father's neighborhood, and was then sent 
to the Charter House. The anecdotes which are popu- 5 
larly related about his boyish tricks do not harmonize 
very well with what we know of his riper years. There 
remains a tradition that he was the ringleader in a bar- 
ring out, and another tradition that he ran away from 
school and hid himself in a wood, where he fed on berries 10 
and slept in a hollow tree, till after a long search he was 
discovered and brought home. If these stories be true, 
it would be curious to know by what moral discipline so 
mutinous and enterprising a lad was transformed into 
the gentlest and most modest of men. 15 

We have abundant proof that whatever Joseph's 
pranks may have been, he pursued his studies vigor- 
ously and successfull3^ At fifteen he was not only fit 
for the university, but carried thither a classical taste 
and a stock of learning whicli would have done honor to 20 
a Master of Arts. He was entered at Queen's College, 
Oxford ; but he had not been many months there when 
some of his Latin verses fell by accident into the hands 
of Dr. Lancaster, Dean of Magdalene College. The 
young scholar's diction and versification were already 25 
such as veteran professors might envy. Dr. Lancaster 
was desirous to serve a boy of such promise ; nor was an 
opportunity long wanting. The Revolution had just 
taken place ; and nowhere had it been hailed with more 
delight than at Magdalene College. That great and 



84 MACAU LAY'S ESSAYS. 

opiileut corporation had been treated by James and by 
his chancellor with an insolence and injustice which, 
even in such a prince and in such a minister, may justly 
excite amazement, and which had done more than even 

5 the prosecution of the bishops to alienate the Church of 
England from the throne. A president, duly elected, 
had been violently expelled from his dwelling : a Papist 
had been set over the society by a royal mandate : the 
Fellows, who, in conformity with their oaths, had re- 

10 fused to submit to this usurper, had been driven forth 
from their quiet cloisters and gardens, to die of want or 
to live on charity. But the day of redress and retribu- 
tion speedily came. The intruders were ejected: the 
venerable House was again inhabited by its old inmates : 

15 learning flourished under the rule of the wise and vir- 
tuous Hough ; and with learning was united a mild and 
liberal spirit too often wanting in the princely colleges 
of Oxford. In consequ.ence of the troubles through 
which the society had passed, there had been no valid 

20 election of new members during the year 1688. In 1689, 
therefore, there was twice the ordinary number of vacan- 
cies ; and thus Dr. Lancaster found it easy to procure 
for his young friend admittance to the advantages of a 
foundation then generally esteemed the wealthiest in 

25 Europe. 

At Magdalene Addison resided during ten years. He 
was at first one of those scholars who are called Demies, 
but was subsequently elected a fellow. His college is 
still proud of his name ; his portrait still hangs in the 
hall ; and strangers are still told that his favorite walk 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 85 

was under the elms which fringe the meadow on the 
banks of the Cherwell. It is said, and is highly proba- 
ble, that he was distinguished among his fellow-students 
by the delicacy of his feelings, by the shyness of his 
manners, and by the assiduity with which he often pro- 5 
longed his studies far into the night. It is certain that 
his reputation for ability and learning stood high. Many 
years later the ancient doctors of Magdalene continued 
to talk in their common room of his boyish compositions, 
and expressed their sorrow that no copy of exercises so 10 
remarkable had been preserved. It is proper, however, 
to remark that Miss Aiken has committed the error, 
very pardonable in a lady, of overrating Addison's clas- 
sical attainments. In ene department of learning, in- 
deed, his proficiency was such as it is hardly possible to 15 
overrate. His knowledge of the Latin poets, from 
Lucretius and Catullus down to Claudian and Pruden- 
tius, was singularly exact and profound. He understood 
them thoroughly, entered into their spirit, and had the 
finest and most discriminating perception of all their 20 
peculiarities of style and melody ; nay, he copied their 
manner with admirable skill, and surpassed, we think, 
all their British imitators who had preceded him, 
Buchanan and Milton alone excepted. This is high 
praise ; and beyond this we cannot with justice go. It 25 
is clear that Addison's serious attention during his resi- 
dence at the university was almost entirely concentrated 
on Latin poetry, and that, if he did not wholly neglect 
other provinces of ancient literature, he vouchsafed to 
them only a cursory glance. He does not appear to 



86 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

have attained more than an ordinary acquaintance with 
the political and moral writers of Rome ; nor was his 
own Latin prose by any means equal to his Latin verse. 
His knowledge of Greek, though doubtless such as was 

5 in his time thought respectable at Oxford, was evidently 
less than that which many lads now carry away every 
year from Eton and Rugby. A minute examination of 
his works, if we had time to make such an examination, 
would fully bear out these remarks. We will briefly 

10 advert to a few of the facts on which our judgment is 
grounded. 

Great praise is due to the notes which Addison ap- 
pended to his version of the second and third books of 
the " Metamorphoses." Yet those notes, while they show 

15 him to have been, in his own domain, an accomplished 
scholar, show also how confined that domain was. They 
are rich in apposite references to Virgil, Statins, and 
Claudian ; but they contain not a single illustration 
drawn from the Greek poets. Now, if in the whole com- 

20 pass of Latin literature there be a passage which stands 
in need of illustration, drawn from the Greek poets, it 
is the story of Pentheus in the third book of the "Meta- 
morphoses." Ovid was indebted for that story to Eurip- 
ides and Theocritus, both of whom he has sometimes 

25 followed minutely. But neither to Euripides nor to 
Theocritus does Addison make the faintest allusion ; and 
we, therefore, believe that we do not wrong him by sup- 
posing that he had little or no knowledge of their works. 
His travels in Italy, again, abound with classical quo- 
tations, happily introduced; but scarcely one of those 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 87 

quotations is in prose. He draws more illustrations from 
Ausonius and Manilius than from Cicero. Even his 
notions of the political and military affairs of the 
Eomans seem to be derived from poets and poetasters. 
Spots made memorable by events which have changed 5 
the destinies of the world, and which have been worthily 
recorded by great historians, bring to his mind only 
scraps of some ancient versifier. In the gorge of the 
Apennines he naturally remembers the hardships which 
Hannibal's army endured, and proceeds to cite, not the lo 
authentic narrative of Polybius, not the picturesque nar- 
rative of Livy, but the languid hexameters of Silius 
Italicus. On the banks of the Rubicon he never thinks 
of Plutarch's lively description, or of the stern conciseness 
of the Commentaries, or of those letters to Atticus which 15 
so forcibly express the alternations of hope and fear in 
a sensitive mind at a present crisis. His only authority 
for the events of the civil war is Lucan. 

All the best ancient works of art at Rome and Flor- 
ence are Greek. Addison saw them, however, without 20 
recalling one single verse of Pindar, of Callimachus, or 
of the Attic dramatists ; but they brought to his recol- 
lection innumerable passages of Horace, Juvenal, Statius, 
and Ovid. 

The same may be said of the " Treatise on Medals." 25 
In that pleasing work we find about three hundre"d pas- 
sages extracted with great judgment from the Roman 
poets ; but we do not recollect a single passage taken 
from any Roman orator or historian ; and we are confi- 
dent that not a line is quoted from any Greek writer. 



88 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

No person, who had derived all his information on the 
subject of medals from Addison, would suspect that the 
Greek coins were in historical interest equal, and in 
beauty of execution far superior, to those of Rome. 

5 If it were necessary to find an}^ further proof that 
Addison's classical knowledge was confined within nar- 
row limits, that proof would be furnished by his Essay 
on the Evidences of Christianity. The Roman poets 
throw little or no light on the literary and historical 

10 questions which he is under the necessity of examining 
in that essay. He is, therefore, left completely in the 
dark ; and it is melancholy to see how helplessly he 
gropes his way from blunder to blunder. He assigns, 
as gi'ounds for his religious belief, stories as absurd as 

15 that of the Cock-Lane ghost, and forgeries as rank as 
Ireland's Vortigern ; puts faith in the lie about the Thun- 
dering Legion ; is convinced that Tiberius moved the sen- 
ate to admit Jesus among the gods, and pronounces the 
letter of Agbariis, King of Edessa, to be a record of great 

20 authority. Nor were these errors the effects of super- 
stition ; for to superstition Addison was by no means 
prone. The truth is, that he was writing about what he 
did not understand. 

Miss Aikin has discovered a letter from which it ap- 

25 pears that, while Addison resided at Oxford, he was one 
of several writers whom the booksellers engaged to make 
an English version of Herodotus ; and she infers that he 
must have been a good Greek scholar. We can allow 
very little weight to this argument, when we consider 
that his fellow-laborers were to have been Boyle and 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 89 

Blackmore. Boyle is remembered chiefly as the nom- 
inal author of the worst book on Greek history and phi- 
lology that ever was printed ; and this book, bad as it is, 
Boyle was unable to produce without help. Of Black- 
more's attainments in the ancient tongues, it may be 5 
sufficient to say that, in his prose, he has confounded 
an aphorism with an apophthegm, and that when, in his 
verse, he treats of classical subjects, his habit is to 
regale his readers with four false quantities to a page. 

It is probable that the classical acquirements of Addi- 10 
son were of as much service to him as if they had been 
more extensive. The world generally gives its admira- 
tion, not to the man who does what nobody else even 
attempts to do, but to the man who does best what mul- 
titudes do well. Bentley was so immeasurably superior 15 
to all the other scholars of his time that few among 
them could discover his superiority. But the accom- 
plishment in which Addison excelled his contemporaries 
was then, as it is now, highly valued and assiduously 
cultivated at all English seats of learning. Everybody 20 
who had been at a public school had written Latin 
verses ; many had written such verses with tolerable 
success, and were quite able to appreciate, though by no 
means able to rival, the skill with which Addison imi- 
tated Virgil. His lines on the Barometer and the Bow- 25 
ling Green were applauded by hundreds, to whom the 
"Dissertation on the Epistles of Phalaris" was as unin- 
telligible as the hieroglyphics on an obelisk. 

Purity of style, and an easy flow of numbers, are 
common to all Addison's Latin poems. Our favorite 



90 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

piece is the " Battle of the Cranes and Pygmies ; " for in 
that piece we discern a gleam of the fancy and humor 
which many years later enlivened thousands of break- 
fast-tables. Swift boasted that he was never known to 

5 steal a hint ; and he certainly owed as little to his pred- 
ecessors as any modern writer. Yet we cannot help 
suspecting that he borrowed, perhaps unconsciously, one 
of the happiest touches in his Voyage of Lilliput from 
Addison's verses. Let our readers judge. 

10 "The Emperor," says Gulliver, "is taller by about the 
breadth of my nail than any of his court, which alone 
is enough to strike an awe into the beholders." 

About thirty years before " Gulliver's Travels " ap- 
peared, Addison wrote these lines : — 

" Jamque acies inter medias sese arduus infert 
Pygmeadum ductor, qui, majestate verendus, 
Incessuque gravis, reliquos supereminet omnes 
Mole gigantea, mediamque exsurgit in ulnam." 

15 The Latin poems of Addison were greatly and justly 
admired both at Oxford and Cambridge, before his name 
had ever been heard by the wits who thronged the coffee- 
houses round Drury-Lane Theatre. In his twenty-second 
year he ventured to appear before the public as a writer 

20 of English verse. He addressed some complimentary 
lines to Dry den, who, after many triumphs and many 
reverses, had at length reached a secure and lonely emi- 
nence among the literary men of that age. Dryden ap- 
pears to have been much gratified by the young scholar's 
praise ; and an interchange of civilities and good offices 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 91 

followed. Addison was probably introduced by Dryden 
to Congreve, and was certainly presented by Congreve 
to Charles Montague, who was then Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, and leader of the Whig party in the House 
of Commons. 5 

At this time Addison seemed inclined to devote him- 
self to poetry. He published a translation of part of 
the fourth Georgic, Lines to King William, and other 
performances of equal value ; that is to say, of no value 
at all. But in those days, the public was in the habit of 10 
receiving with applause pieces which would now have 
little chance of obtaining the Newdigate prize or the 
Seatonian prize. And the reason is obvious. The he- 
roic couplet was then the favorite measure. The art of 
arranging words in that measure, so that the lines may 15 
flow smoothly, that the accents may fall correctly, that 
the rhymes may strike the ear strongly, and that there 
may be a pause at the end of every distich, is an art as 
mechanical as that of mending a kettle or shoeing a 
horse, and may be learned by any human being who has 20 
sense enough to learn. But, like other mechanical arts, 
it was gradually improved by means of many experi- 
ments and many failures. It was reserved for Pope to 
discover the trick, to make himself complete master of it, 
and to teach it to everybody else. From the time when 25 
his " Pastorals " appeared, heroic versification became 
matter of rule and compass ; and, before long, all artists 
were on a level. Hundreds of dunces who never blun- 
dered on one happy thought or expression were able to 
write reams of couplets which, as far as euphony was 



92 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

concerned, could not be distinguished from those of Pope 
himself, and which very clever writers of the reign of 
Charles the Second, — Eochester, for example, or Marvel, 
or Oldham, — would have contemplated with admiring 

5 despair. 

Ben Jonson was a great man, Hoole a very small man. 
But Hoole, coming after Pope, had learned how to manu- 
facture decasyllabic verses, and poured them forth by 
thousands and tens of thousands, all as well turned, as 

10 smooth, and as like each other as the blocks which have 
passed through Mr. Brunei's mill in the dockyards at 
Portsmouth. Ben's heroic couplets resemble blocks 
rudely hewn out by an unpractised hand with a blunt 
hatchet. Take as a specimen his translation of a cele- 

15 brated passage in the iEneid : — 

"This child our parent earth, stirred up with spite 
Of all the gods, brought forth, and, as some write, 
She was last sister of that giant race 
That sought to scale Jove's court, right swift of pace, 
And swifter far of wing, a monster vast 
And dreadful. Look, how many plumes are placed 
On her huge corpse, so many waking eyes 
Stick underneath, and, which may stranger rise 
In the report, as many tongues she wears." 

Compare with these jagged misshapen distichs the 
neat fabric which Hoole's machine produces in unlim- 
ited abundance. We take the first lines on which we 
open in his version of Tasso. They are neither better 
nor worse than the rest : — 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 93 

" O thou, whoe'er thou art, whose steps are led, 
By choice or fate, these lonely shores to tread, 
No greater wonders east or west can boast 
Than yon small island on the pleasing coast. 
If e'er thy sight would blissful scenes explore, 
The current pass, and seek the further shore." 

Ever since the time of Pope there has been a- glut 
of lines of this sort, and we are now as little disposed to 
admire a man for being able to write them, as for being 
able to write his name. But in the days of William the 
Third such versification was rare ; and a rhymer who 5 
had any skill in it passed for a great poet, just as in the 
dark ages a person who could write his name passed for 
a great clerk. Accordingly, Duke, Stepney, Granville, 
Walsh, and others, whose only title to fame was that 
they said in tolerable metre what might have been as 10 
well said in prose, or what was not worth saying at all, 
were honored with marks of distinction which ought to 
be reserved for genius. With these Addison must have 
ranked, if he had not earned true and lasting glory by 
performances which very little resembled his juvenile 15 
poems. 

Dryden was now busied with Virgil, and obtained from 
Addison a critical preface to the Georgics. In return 
for this service, and for other services of the same kind, 
the veteran poet, in the postscript to the translation of 20 
the iEneid, complimented his young friend with great 
liberality, and indeed with more liberality than sincerity. 
He affected to be afraid that his own performance would 
not sustain a comparison with the version of the fourth 



94 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Georgic, by " the most ingenious Mr. Addison of Oxford." 
"After his bees," added Dryden, "my latter swarm is 
scarcely worth the hiving." 

The time had now arrived when it was necessary for 

5 Addison to choose a calling. Everything seemed to 
point his course towards the clerical profession. His 
habits were regular, his opinions orthodox. His college 
had large ecclesiastical preferment in its gift, and boasts 
that it has given at least one bishop to almost every see 

10 in England. Dr. Lancelot Addison held an honorable 
place in the church, and had set his heart on seeing his 
son a clergyman. It is clear, from some expressions in 
the young man's rhymes, that his intention was to take 
orders. But Charles Montague interfered. Montague 

15 had first brought himself into notice by verses, well- 
timed and not contemptibly written, but never, we think, 
rising above mediocrity. Fortunately for himself and 
for his country, he early quitted poetry, in which he 
could never have attained a rank as high as that of 

20 Dorset or Eochester, and turned his mind to official and 
parliamentary business. It is written that the ingenious 
person who undertook to instruct Easselas, prince of 
Abyssinia, in the art of flying, ascended an eminence, 
waved his wings, sprang into the air, and instantly 

25 dropped into the lake. But it is added that the wings, 
which were unable to support him through the sky, bore 
him up effectually as soon as he was in the water. This 
is no bad type of the fate of Charles Montague, and of 
men like him. When he attempted to soar into the 
regions of poetical invention, he altogether failed ; but, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 95 

as soon as he had descended from that ethereal elevation 
into a lower and grosser element, his talents instantly 
raised him above the mass. He became a distinguished 
financier, debater, courtier, and party leader. He still 
retained his fondness for the pursuits of his early days ; 5 
but he showed that fondness not by Avearying the public 
with his own feeble performances, but by discovering 
and encouraging literary excellence in others. A crowd 
of wits and poets, who would easily have vanquished 
him as a competitor, revered him as a judge and a patron. 10 
In his plans for the encouragement of learning, he was 
cordially svipported by the ablest and most virtuous of 
his colleagues, Lord Chancellor Somers. Though both 
these great statesmen had a sincere love of letters, it 
was not solely from a love of letters that they were 15 
desirous to enlist youths of high intellectual qualifica- 
tions in the public service. The Revolution had altered 
the whole system of government. Before that event 
the press had been controlled by censors, and the parlia- 
ment had sat only two months in eight years. Now the 20 
press was free, and had begun to exercise unprecedented 
influence on the public mind. Parliament met annually, 
and sat long. The chief power in the state had passed 
to the House of Commons. At such a conjuncture, it 
was natural that literary and oratorical talents should 25 
rise in value. There was danger that a government 
which neglected such talents might be subverted by 
them. It was, therefore, a profound and enlightened 
policy which led Montague and Somers to attach such 
talents to the Whig party, by the strongest ties both of 30 
interest and of gratitude. 



96 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

It is remarkable that in a neighboring country, we 
have recently seen similar effects follow from similar 
causes. The Eevolution of July 1830 established repre- 
sentative government in France. The men of letters 

5 instantly rose to the highest importance in the state. 
At the present moment most of the persons whom we 
see at the head both of the Administration and of the 
Opposition, have been professors, historians, journalists, 
poets. The influence of the literary class in England, 

10 during the generation which followed the Revolution, 
was great, but by no means so great as it has lately been 
in France. For, in England, the aristocracy of intellect 
had to contend with a powerful and deeply rooted aris- 
tocracy of a very different kind. France had no Somer- 

15 sets and Shrewsburies to keep down her Addisons and 
Priors. 

It was in the year 1699, when Addison had just com- 
pleted his twenty-seventh year, that the course of his 
life was finally determined. Both the great chiefs of 

20 the Ministry were kindly disposed towards him. In 
political opinions he already was what he continued to 
be through life, a firm, though a moderate Whig. He 
had addressed the most polished and vigorous of his 
early English lines to Somers, and had dedicated to 

25 Montague a Latin poem, truly Virgilian, both in style 
and rhythm, on the peace of Ryswick. The wish of the 
young poet's great friends was, it should seem, to em- 
ploy him in the service of the crown abroad. But an 
intimate knowledge of the French language was a quali- 
fication indispensable to a diplomatist; and this qualifi- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 97 

cation Addison had not acquired. It was, therefore, 
thought desirable that he should pass some time on the 
Continent in preparing himself for official employment. 
His own means were not such as would enable him to 
travel ; but a pension of three hundred pounds a year 5 
was procured for him by the interest of the Lord Chan- 
cellor. It seems to have been apprehended that some 
difficulty might be started by the rulers of Magdalene 
College. But the Chancellor of the Exchequer wrote in 
the strongest terms to Hough. The state — such was 10 
the purport of Montague's letter — could not, at that 
time, spare to the church such a man as Addison. Too 
many high civil posts were already occupied by adven- 
turers, who, destitute of every liberal art and sentiment, 
at once pillaged and disgraced the country which they 15 
pretended to serve. It had become necessary to recruit 
for the public service from a very different class, from 
that class of which Addison was the representative. 
The close of the Minister's letter was remarkable. " I 
am called," he said, '' an enemy of the church. But I 20 
will never do it any other injury than keeping Mr. Addi- 
son out of it." 

This interference was successful ; and, in the summer 
of 1699, Addison, made a rich man by his pension, and 
still retaining his fellowship, quitted his beloved Oxford, 25 
and set out on his travels. He crossed from Dover to 
Calais, proceeded to Paris, and was received there with 
great kindness and politeness by a kinsman of his friend 
Montague, Charles Earl of Manchester, who had just 
been appointed Ambassador to the Court of France. 



98 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

The countess, a Whig and a toast, was probably as gra- 
cious as her lord ; for Addison long retained an agree- 
able recollection of the impression which she at this 
time made on him, and, in some lively lines written on 

5 the glasses of the Kit Cat Club, described the envy 
which her cheeks, glowing with the genuine bloom of 
England, had excited among the painted beauties of 
Versailles. 

On the Fourteenth was at this time expiating the 

10 vices of his youth by a devotion which had no root in 
reason, and bore no fruit of charity. The servile litera- 
ture of France had changed its character to suit the 
changed character of the prince. No book appeared 
that had not an air of sanctity. Racine, who was just 

15 dead, had passed the close of his life in writing sacred 
dramas ; and Dacier was seeking for the Athanasian 
mysteries in Plato. Addison described this state of 
things in a short but lively and graceful letter to Mon- 
tague. Another letter, written about the same time to 

20 the Lord Chancellor, conveyed the strongest assurances 
of gratitude and attachment. " The onl}^ return I can 
make to your lordship," said Addison, " will be to apply 
myself entirely to my business." With this view he 
quitted Paris and repaired to Blois, a place where it was 

25 supposed that the French language was spoken in its 
highest purity, and where not a single Englishman 
could be found. Here he passed some months pleasantly 
and profitably. Of his way of life at Blois, one of his 
associates, an abbe named Philippeaux, gave an account 
to Joseph Spence. If this account is to be trusted, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 99 

Addison studied much, mused much, talked little, had 
fits of absence, and either had no love affairs, or was too 
discreet to confide them to the abbe. A man who, even 
when surrounded by fellow-countrymen and fellow-stu- 
dents, had always been remarkably shy and silent, was 5 
not likely to be loquacious in a foreign tongue, and 
among foreign companions. But it is clear from Addi- 
son's letters, some of which were long after published 
in the Guardian, that, while he appeared to be absorbed 
in his own meditations, he was really observing French 10 
society with that keen and sly, yet not ill-natured side- 
glance, which was peculiarly his own. 

From Blois he returned to Paris ; and, having now 
mastered the French language, found great pleasure in 
the society of French philosophers and poets. He gave 15 
an account in a letter to Bishop Hough, of two highly 
interesting conversations, one with Malebranche, the 
other with Boileau. Malebranche expressed great par- 
tiality for the English, and extolled the genius of New- 
ton, but shook his head when Hobbes was mentioned, 20 
and was indeed so unjust as to call the author of the 
" Leviathan " a poor silly creature. Addison's modesty 
restrained him from fully relating, in his letter, the cir- 
cumstances of his introduction to Boileau. Boileau, 
having survived the friends and rivals of his youth, old, 25 
deaf, and melancholy, lived in retirement, seldom went 
either to Court or to the Academy, and was almost inac- 
cessible to strangers. Of the English and of English 
literature he knew nothing. He had hardly heard the 
name of Dryden. Some of our countrymen, in the 



100 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

warmth of their patriotism, have asserted that this ig- 
norance must have been affected. We own that we see 
no ground for such a supposition. English literature 
was to the French of the age of Louis the Fourteenth 
5 what German literature was to our own grandfathers. 
Very few, we suspect, of the accomplished men who, 
sixty or seventy years ago, used to dine in Leicester 
Square with Sir Joshua, or at Streatham with Mrs. 
Thrale, had the slightest notion that Wieland was one 

10 of the first wits and poets, and Lessing, beyond all dis- 
pute, the first critic in Europe. Boileau knew just as 
little about the " Paradise Lost " and about Absalom and 
Achitophel ; but he had read Addison's Latin poems, 
and admired them greatly. They had given him, he 

15 said, quite a new notion of the state of learning and 
taste among the English. Johnson will have it that 
these praises were insincere. " Nothing," says he, " is 
better known of Boileau than that he had an injudicious 
and peevish contempt of modern Latin ; and therefore 

20 his profession of regard Avas probably the effect of his 
civility rather than approbation." Now, nothing is bet- 
ter known of Boileau than that he was singularly spar- 
ing of compliments. We do not remember that either 
friendship or fear ever induced him to bestow praise on 

25 any composition which he did not approve. On literary 
questions, his caustic, disdainful, and self-confident spirit 
rebelled against that authority to which everything else 
in France bowed down. He had the spirit to tell Louis 
the Fourteenth firmly and even rudely, that his majesty 
knew nothing about poetry, and admired verses which 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 101 

were detestable. What was there in Addison's position 
that could induce the satirist, whose stern and fastidious 
temper had been the dread of two generations, to turn 
sycophant for the first and last time ? Kor was Boileau's 
contempt of modern Latin either injudicious or peevish. 5 
He thought, indeed, that no poem of the first order 
would ever be written in a dead language. And did he 
think amiss ? Has not the experience of centuries con- 
firmed his opinion ? Boileau also thought it probable 
that, in the best modern Latin, a writer of the Augustan 10 
age would have detected ludicrous improprieties. And 
who can think otherwise ? What modern scholar can 
honestly declare that he sees the smallest impurity in 
the style of Livy ? Yet is it not certain that, in the 
style of Livy, Pollio, whose taste had been formed on 15 
the banks of the Tiber, detected the inelegant idiom of 
the Po ? Has any modern scholar understood Latin 
better than Frederic the Great understood French ? 
Yet is it not notorious that Frederic the Great, after 
reading, speaking, writing French, and nothing but 20 
French, during more than half a century, after unlearn- 
ing his mother tongue in order to learn French, after 
living familiarly during many years with French asso- 
ciates, could not, to the last, compose in French, without 
imminent risk of committing some mistake which would 25 
have moved a smile in the literary circles of Paris ? Do 
we believe that Erasmus and Fracastorius wrote Latin, 
as well as Dr. Robertson and Sir Walter Scott wrote 
English ? And are there not in the " Dissertation on 
India," the last of Dr. Robertson's works, in '•' Waverley," 



102 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

in " MarmioD," Scotticisms at which a London appren- 
tice would laugh ? But does it follow, because we think 
thus, that we can find nothing to admire in the noble 
alcaics of Gray, or in the playful elegiacs of Vincent 

5 Bourne ? Surely not. Nor was Boileau so ignorant or 
tasteless as to be incapable of appreciating good modern 
Latin. In the very letter to which Johnson alludes, 
Boileau says, " Ne croyez pas pourtant que je veuille 
par Ik blamer les vers Latins que vous m'avez envoyes 

10 d'un de vos illustres academiciens. Je les ai trouves 
fort beaux, et dignes de Vida et de Sannazar, mais non 
pas d'Horace et de Virgile." Several poems in modern 
Latin have been praised by Boileau quite as liberally as 
it was his habit to praise anything. He says, for ex- 

15 ample, of the Pere Fraguier's epigrams, that Catullus 
seems to have come to life again. But the best proof 
that Boileau did not feel the undiscerning contempt for 
modern Latin verses which has been imputed to him, is 
that he wrote and published Latin verses in several 

20 metres. Indeed, it happens, curiously enough, that the 
most severe censure ever pronounced by him on modern 
Latin is conveyed in Latin hexameters. We allude to 
the fragment which begins : — 

" Quid numeris iterum me balbutire Latinis, 
Longe Alpes citra natum de patre Sicambro, 
Musa, jubes ?" 

For these reasons we feel assured that the praise 

25 which Boileau bestowed on the Machince Gesticulantes, 

and the Gerayio-Pygmceomachia, was sincere. He cer- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 103 

tainly opened himself to Addison with a freedom which 
was a sure indication of esteem. Literature was the 
chief subject of conversation. The old man talked on 
his favorite theme much and well, — indeed, as his 
young hearer thought, incomparably well. Boileau had 5 
undoubtedly some of the qualities of a great critic. He 
wanted imagination ; but he had strong sense. His lit- 
erary code was formed on narrow principles ; but in ' 
applying it he showed great judgment and penetration. 
In mere style, abstracted from the ideas of which style 10 
is the garb, his taste was excellent. He was well 
acquainted with the great Greek writers, and, though 
unable fully to appreciate their creative genius, admired 
the majestic simplicity of their manner, and had learned 
from them to despise bombast and tinsel. It is easy, we 15 
think, to discover in the Spectator and the Guardian 
traces of the influence, in part salutary and in part 
perilicious, which the mind of Boileau had on the mind 
of Addison. 

While Addison was at Paris, an event took place which 20 
made that capital a disagreeable residence for an Eng- 
lishman and a Whig. Charles, second of the name. 
King of Spain died, and bequeathed his dominions to 
Philip, Duke of Anjou, a younger son of the Dauphin. 
The King of France, in direct violation of his engage- 25 
ments, both with Great Britain and Avitli the States 
General, accepted the bequest on behalf of his grandson. 
The house of Bourbon was at the summit of human 
grandeur. England had been outwitted, and found her- 
self in a situation at once degrading and perilous. The 



104 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

people of France, not presaging the calamities by which 
they were destined to expiate the perfidy of their sov- 
ereign went mad with pride and delight. Every man 
looked as if a great estate had just been left him. 

5 "The French conversation," said Addison, "begins to 
grow insupportable ; that which was before the vainest 
nation in the world, is now worse than ever." Sick of 
the arrogant exultation of the Parisians, and probably 
foreseeing that the peace between France and England 

10 could not be of long duration, he set off for Italy. 

In December, 1700, he embarked at Marseilles. As he 
glided along the Ligurian coast, he was delighted by the 
sight of myrtles and olive-trees, Avhich retained their 
verdure under the winter solstice. Soon, however, he 

15 encountered one of the black storms of the Mediterra- 
nean. The captain of the ship gave up all for lost, 
and confessed himself to a capuchin who happened 
to be on board. The English heretic, in the mean- 
time, fortified himself against the terrors of death with 

20 devotions of a very different kind. How strong an 
impression this perilous voyage made on him appears 
from the ode, " How are thy servants blest, Lord ! " 
which was long after published in the Spectator. After 
some days of discomfort and danger, Addison was glad 

25 to land at Savona, and to make his way, over mountains 
where no road had yet been hewn out by art, to the 
city of Genoa. 

At Genoa, still ruled by her own doge, and by the 
nobles whose names were inscribed on her Book of Gold, 
Addison made a short stay. He admired the narrow 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 105 

streets overhung by long lines of towering palaces, the 
walls rich with frescos, the gorgeous temple of the 
Annunciation, and the tapestries whereon were recorded 
the long glories of the house of Doria. Thence he 
liastened to Milan, where he contemplated the Gothic 5 
magnificence of the cathedral with more wonder than 
pleasure. He passed Lake Benacus while a gale was 
blowing, and saw the waves raging as they raged when 
Virgil looked upon them. At Venice, then the gayest 
spot in Europe, the traveller spent the Carnival, the lo 
gayest season of the year, in the midst of masks, 
dances, and serenades. Here he was at once diverted 
and provoked by the absurd dramatic pieces which then 
disgraced the Italian stage. To one of those pieces, 
however, he was indebted for a valuable hint. He was 15 
present when a ridiculous play on the death of Cato was 
performed. Cato, it seems, was in love with a daughter 
of Scipio. The lady had given her heart to Caesar. The 
rejected lover determined to destroy himself. He 
appeared seated in his library, a dagger in his hand, a 20 
Plutarch and a Tasso before him ; and, in this position, 
he pronounced a soliloquy before he struck the blow. 
We are surprised that so remarkable a circumstance as 
this should have escaped the notice of all Addison's 
biographers. There cannot, we conceive, be the smallest 25 
doubt that this scene, in spite of its absurdities and 
anachronisms, struck the traveller's imagination, and 
suggested to him the thought of bringing Cato on the 
English stage. It is well known that about this time he 
began his tragedy, and that he finished the first four 30 
acts before he returned to Ensrland. 



106 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

On his way from Venice to Kome, he was drawn some 
miles out of the beaten road by a wish to see the smallest 
independent state in Europe. On a rock where the snow 
still lay, though the Italian spring was now far advanced, 

5 was perched the little fortress of San Marino. The roads 
which led to the secluded town were so bad that few 
travellers had ever visited it, and none had ever pub- 
lished an account of it. Addison could not suppress a 
good-natured smile at the simple manners and institu- 

10 tions of this singular community. But he observed, 
with the exultation of a Whig, that the rude mountain 
tract which formed the territory of the republic swarmed 
with an honest, healthy, and contented peasantry, while 
the rich plain which surrounded the metropolis of civil 

15 and spiritual tyranny was scarcely less desolate than the 
uncleared wilds of America. 

At Eome Addison remained on his first visit only long 
enough to catch a glimpse of St. Peter's and of the 
Pantheon. His haste is the more extraordinary because 

20 the Holy Week was close at hand. He has given no 
hint which can enable us to pronounce why he chose to 
fly from a spectacle which every year allures from distant 
regions persons of far less taste and sensibility than his. 
Possibly, travelling, as he did, at the charge of a gov- 

25 ernment distinguished by its enmity to the Church of 
Kome, he may have thought that it would be imprudent 
in him to assist at the most magnificent rite of that 
church. Many eyes would be upon him, and he might 
find it difiicult to behave in such a manner as to give 
offence neither to his patrons in England, nor to those 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 107 

among whom he resided. Whatever his motives may 
have been, he turned his back on the most august and 
affecting ceremony which is known among men, and 
posted along the Appian way to Naples. 

Naples was then destitute of what are now, perhaps, 5 
its chief attractions. The lovely bay and the awful 
mountain were indeed there ; but a farmhouse stood on 
the theatre of Herculaneum, and rows of vines grew 
over the streets of Pompeii. The temples of Paestum 
had not indeed been hidden from the eye of man by 10 
any great convulsion of nature ; but, strange to say, 
their existence was a secret even to artists and anti- 
quaries. Though situated within a few hours' journey 
of a great capital, where Salvator had not long before 
painted, and where Vico was then lecturing, those noble 15 
remains were as little known to Europe as the ruined 
cities overgrown by the forests of Yucatan. What was 
to be seen at Naples Addison saw. He climbed Vesuvius, 
explored the tunnel of Posilipo, and wandered among the 
vines and almond-trees of Capreee ; but neither the 20 
wonders of nature, nor those of art, could so occupy his 
attention as to prevent him from noticing, though cur- 
sorily, the abuses of the government and the misery of 
the people. The great kingdom which had just descended 
to Philip the Fifth, was in a state of paralytic dotage. 25 
Even Castile and Aragon were sunk in wretchedness. 
Yet, compared with the Italian dependencies of the 
Spanish crown, Castile and Aragon might be called pros- 
perous. It is clear that all the observations which 
Addison made in Italy tended to confirm him in the 



108 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

political opinions which he had adopted at home. To 
the last he always spoke of foreign travel as the best 
cure for Jacobitism. In his '^ Freeholder " the Troy fox- 
hunter asks what travelling is good for, except to teach 

5 a man to jabber French and to talk against passive 
obedience. 

From Naples, Addison returned to Eome by sea, along 
the coast which his favorite Virgil had celebrated. The 
felucca passed the headland where the oar and trumpet 

10 were placed by the Trojan adventurers on the tomb of 
Misenus, and anchored at night under the shelter of the 
fabled promontory of Circe. The voyage ended in the 
Tiber, still overhung with dark verdure, and still turbid 
with yellow sand, as when it met the eyes of ^Eneas. 

15 From the ruined jDort of Ostia, the stranger hurried to 
Rome ; and at Rome he remained during those hot and 
sickly months, when, even in the Augustan age, all who 
could make their escape fled from mad dogs and from 
streets black with funerals, to gather the first figs of 

20 the season in the country. It is probable that, when 
he, long after, poured forth in verse his gratitude to 
the Providence which had enabled liim to breathe unhurt 
in tainted air, he was thinking of the August and Sep- 
tember which he passed at Rome. 

25 It was not till the latter end of October that he tore 
himself away from the masterpieces of ancient and 
modern art which are collected in the city so long the 
mistress of the world. He then journeyed northward, 
passed through Sienna, and for a moment forgot his prej- 
udices in favor of classic architecture as he looked on 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 109 

the magnificent cathedral. At Florence he spent some 
days with the Duke of Shrewsbury, who, cloyed with 
the pleasure* of ambition, and impatient of its pains, 
fearing both parties, and loving neither, had determined 
to hide in an Italian retreat talents and accomplishments 5 
which, if they had been united with fixed principles 
and civil courage, might have made him the foremost 
man of his age. These days, we are told, passed pleas- 
antly ; and we can easily believe it. For Addison was 
a delightful companion when he was at his ease ; and lo 
the duke, though he seldom forgot that he was a Talbot, 
had the invaluable art of putting at ease all who came 
near him. 

Addison gave some time to Florence, and especially to 
the sculptures in the Museum, which he preferred even 15 
to those of the Vatican. He then pursued his journey 
through a country in which the ravages of the last war 
were still discernible, and in which all men were looking 
forward with a dread to a still fiercer conflict. Eugene 
had already descended from the Rhaetian Alps, to dis- 20 
pute with Catinat the rich plain of Lombardy. The faith- 
less ruler of Savoy was still reckoned among the allies 
of Louis. England had not yet actually declared war 
against France : but Manchester had left Paris ; and the 
negotiations which produced the Grand Alliance against 25 
the house of Bourbon were in progress. Under such 
circumstances, it was desirable for an English traveller to 
reach neutral ground without delay. Addison resolved 
to cross Mont Cenis. It was December ; and the road 
was very different from that which now reminds the 



no MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

stranger of the power and genius of Napoleon. The winter, 
however, was mild ; and the passage was, for those times, 
easy. To this journey Addison alluded when, in the 
ode which we have already quoted, he said that for him 

5 the Divine goodness had warmed the hoary Alpine hills. 
It was in the midst of the eternal snow that he com- 
posed his Epistle to his friend Montague, now Lord 
Halifax. That Epistle, once widely renowned, is now 
known only to curious readers, and will hardly be consid- 

10 ered by those to whom it is known as in any percepti- 
ble degree heightening Addison's fame. It is, however, 
decidedly superior to any English composition which he 
had previously published. ISTay, we think it quite as 
good as any poem in heroic metre which appeared during 

15 the interval between the death of Dryden and the pub- 
lication of the Essay on Criticism. It contains passages 
as good as the second-rate passages of Pope, and would 
have added to the reputation of Parnell or Prior. 

But, whatever be the literary merits or defects of the 

20 Epistle, it undoubtedly does honor to the principles and 
spirit of the author. Halifax liad now nothing to give. 
He had fallen from power, had been held up to obloquy, 
had been impeached by the House of Commons, and, 
though his peers liad dismissed the impeachment, had, 

25 as it seemed, little chance of ever again filling high 
office. The Epistle, written at such a time, is one among 
many proofs that there was no mixture of cowardice or 
meanness in the suavity and moderation which distin- 
guished Addison from all the other public men of those 
stormy times. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. Ill 

At Geneva, the traveller learned that a partial change 
of ministry had taken place in England, and that the 
Earl of Manchester had become Secretary of State. 
■ Manchester exerted himself to serve his young friend. 
It was thought advisable that an English agent should 5 
be near the person of Eugene in Italy ; and Addison, 
whose diplomatic education was now finished, was the 
man selected. He was preparing to enter on his honor- 
able functions, when all his prospects were for a time 
darkened by the death of William the Third. lO 

Anne had long felt a strong aversion, personal, politi- 
cal, and religious, to the Whig party. That aversion 
appeared in the first measures of her reign. Manchester 
was deprived of the seals, after he had held them only a 
few weeks. Neither Somers nor Halifax was sworn of 15 
the Privy Council. Addison shared the fate of his three 
patrons. His hopes of employment in the public service 
were at an end ; his pension was stopped ; and it was 
necessary for him to support himself by his own exer- 
tions. He became tutor to a young English traveller, and 20 
appears to have rambled with his pupil over great part 
of Switzerland and Germany. At this time he wrote his 
pleasing treatise on Medals. It was not published till after 
his death; but several distinguished scholars saw the man- 
uscript, and gave just praise to the grace of the style, and 25 
to the learning and ingenuity evinced by the quotations. 

From Germany, Addison repaired to Holland, where 
he learned the melancholy news of his father's death. 
After passing some months in the United Provinces, he 
returned about the close of the year 1703 to England. 



112 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

He was there cordially received by his friends, and intro- 
duced by them into the Kit Cat Club, a society in which 
were collected all the various talents and accomplish- 
ments which then gave lustre to the Whig party. 

5 Addison was, during some months after his return 
from the Continent, hard pressed by pecuniary difficul- 
ties. But it was soon in the power of his noble patrons 
to serve him effectually. A political change, silent 
and gradual, but of the highest importance, was in daily 

10 progress. The accession of Anne had been hailed by the 
Tories with transports of joy and hope ; and for a time 
it seemed that the Whigs had fallen never to rise again. 
The throne was surrounded by men supposed to be at- 
tached to the prerogative and to the church ; and among 

15 these none stood so high in the favor of the sovereign as 
the Lord-Treasurer Godolphin and the Captain-General 
Marlborough. 

The country gentlemen and country clergymen had 
fully expected that the policy of these ministers would 

20 be directly opposed to that which had been almost con- 
stantly followed by William ; that the lauded interest 
would be favored at the expense of trade ; that no 
additions would be made to the funded debt ; that the« 
privileges conceded to Dissenters by the late king would 

25 be curtailed, if not withdrawn ; that the war with 
France, if there must be such a war, would, on our part, 
be almost entirely naval ; and that the government 
would avoid close connections with foreign powers, and, 
above all, with Holland. 

But the country gentlemen and country clergymen 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 113 

were fated to be deceived, not for the last time. The 
prejudices and passions which raged without control in 
vicarages, in cathedral closes, and in the manor-houses 
of fox-hunting squires, were not shared by the chiefs of 
the ministry. Those statesmen saw that it was both for 5 
the public interest, and for their own interest, to adopt 
a Whig policy, at least as respected the alliances of 
the country and the conduct of the war. But, if the for- 
eign policy of the Whigs were adopted, it was impossi- 
ble to abstain from adopting also their financial policy. 10 
The natural consequences followed. The rigid Tories 
were alienated from the government. The votes of the 
Whigs became necessary to it. The votes of the Whigs 
could be secured only by further concessions ; and 
further concessions the Queen was induced to make. 15 

At the beginning of the year 1704, the state of parties 
bore a close analogy to the state of parties in 1826. In 
1826, as in 1704, there was a Tory ministry divided into 
two hostile sections. The position of Mr. Canning and 
his friends in 1826 corresponded to that which Marl- 20 
borough and Godolphin occupied in 1704. Nottingham 
and Jersey were in 1704 what Lord Eldon and Lord 
Westmoreland were in 1826. The Whigs of 1704 were 
in a situation resembling that in which the Whigs of 
1826 stood. In 1704, Somers, Halifax, Sunderland, Cow- 25 
per, were not in office. There was no avowed coalition 
between them and the moderate Tories. It is probable 
that no direct communication tending to such a coalition 
had yet taken place ; yet all men saw that such a coa- 
lition was inevitable ; nay, that it was already half 



114 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

formed. Such, or nearly such, was the state of things 
when tidings arrived of the great battle fought at Blen- 
heim on the 13th August, 1704. By the Whigs the 
news was hailed with transports of joy and pride. No 

5 fault, no cause of quarrel, could be remembered by them 
against the commander whose genius had, in one day, 
changed the face of Europe, saved the Imperial throne, 
humbled the house of Bourbon, and secured the Act of 
Settlement against foreign hostility. The feeling of the 

10 Tories was very different. They could not indeed, with- 
out imprudence, openly express regret at an event so 
glorious to their country ; but their congratulations were 
so cold and sullen as to give deep disgust to the victori- 
ous general and his friends. 

15 Godolphin was not a reading man. Whatever time 
he could spare from business he was in the habit of 
spending at Newmarket or at the card-table. But he 
was not absolutely indifferent to poetry ; and he was 
too intelligent an observer not to perceive that literature 

20 was a formidable engine of political warfare, and that 
the great Whig leaders had strengthened their party, 
and raised their character, by extending a liberal and 
judicious patronage to good writers. He was mortified, 
and not without reason, by the exceeding badness of the 

25 poems which appeared in honor of the battle of Blenheim. 
One of these poems has been rescued from oblivion by 
the exquisite absurdity of three lines : — 

*■' T^ink of two thousand gentlemen at least, 
And each man mounted on his capering beast; 
Into the Danube they were pushed by shoals." 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 115 

Where to procure better verses the treasurer did not 
know. He understood how to negotiate a loan, or remit 
a subsidy ; he was also well versed iu the history of run- 
ning horses and fighting cocks ; but his acquaintance 
among the poets was very small. He consulted Halifax ; 5 
but Halifax affected to decline the office of adviser. He 
had, he said, done his best, when he had power, to en- 
courage men whose abilities and acquirements might do 
honor to their country. Those times were over. Other 
maxims had prevailed. Merit was suffered to pine in 10 
obscurity ; and the public money was squandered on the 
undeserving. " I do know," he added, " a gentleman 
who would celebrate the battle in a manner worthy of 
the subject, but I will not name him." Godolphin, who 
was an expert at the soft answer which turneth away 15 
wrath, and who was under the necessity of paying court 
to the Whigs, gently replied that there was too much 
ground for Halifax's complaints, but that what was 
amiss should in time be rectified, and that in the mean- 
time the services of a man such as Halifax had described 20 
should be liberally rewarded. Halifax then mentioned 
Addison ; but, mindful of the dignity as well as of the 
pecuniary interest of his friend, insisted that the minis- 
ter should apply in the most courteous manner to Addi- 
son himself ; and this Godolphin promised to do. 25 

Addison then occupied a garret up three pair of stairs, 
over a small shop in the Haymarket. In this humble 
lodging he was surprised, on the morning which followed 
the conversation between Godolphin and Halifax, by a 
visit from no less a person than the Kight Honorable 



116 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Henry Boyle, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
afterwards Lord Carleton, This high-born minister had 
been sent by the Lord-Treasurer as ambassador to the 
needy poet. Addison readily \indertook the proposed 

5 task, a task which, to so good a Whig, was probably a 
pleasure. When the poem was little more than half 
finished, he showed it to Godolphin, w^ho was delighted 
with it, and particularly with the famous similitude of 
the Angel. Addison was instantly appointed to a com- 

10 missionership worth about two hundred pounds a year, 
and was assured that this a]3pointment was only an ear- 
nest of greater favors. 

The " Campaign " came forth, and was as much admired 
by the public as by the minister. It pleases us less on 

15 the whole than the "Epistle to Halifax." Yet it undoubt- 
edly ranks high among the poems which appeared during 
the interval between the death of Dryden and the dawn 
of Pope's genius. The chief merit of the "Campaign," we 
think, is that which was noticed by Johnson, the manly 

20 and rational rejection of fiction. The first great poet 
whose works have come down to us sang of war long 
before war became a science or a trade. If, in his time, 
there was enmity between two little Greek towns, each 
poured forth its crowd of citizens, ignorant of discipline, 

25 and armed with implements of labor rudely turned into 
weapons. On each side appeared conspicuous a few 
chiefs, whose wealth had enabled them to procure good 
armor, horses, and chariots, and whose leisure had en- 
abled them to practise military exercises. One such 
chief, if he were a man of great strength, agility, and 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 117 

courage, would probably be more formidable than twenty 
common men ; and the force and dexterity with which 
he flung his spear might have no inconsiderable share in 
deciding the event of the day. Such were probably the 
battles with which Homer was familiar. But Homer 5 
related the actions of men of a former generation, of men 
who sprang from the gods, and communed with the 
gods face to face ; of men, one of whom could with ease 
hurl rocks which two sturdy hinds of a later period 
would be unable even to lift. He therefore naturally 10 
represented their martial exploits as resembling in kind, 
but far surpassing in magnitude, those of the stoutest 
and most expert combatants of his own age. Achilles, 
clad in celestial armor, drawn by celestial coursers, 
grasping the spear which none but himself could raise, 15 
driving all Troy and Lycia before him, and choking 
Scamander with dead, was only a magnificent exaggera- 
tion of the real hero, who, strong, fearless, accustomed 
to the use of weapons, guarded by a shield and helmet 
of the best Sidonian fabric, and whirled along by horses 20 
of Thessalanian breed, struck down with his own right 
arm, foe after foe. In all rude societies similar notions 
are found. There are at this day countries where the 
Life-guardsman Shaw would be considered as a much 
greater warrior than the Duke of Wellington. Bona- 25 
parte loved to describe the astonishment with which tlie 
Mamelukes looked at his diminutive figure. Mourad 
Bey, distinguished above all his fellows by his bodily 
strength, and by the skill with which he managed his 
horse and his sabre, could not believe that a man who 



118 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

was scarcely five feet high, and rode like a butcher, 
could be the greatest soldier in Europe. 

Homer's descriptions of war had therefore as much 
truth as poetry requires. But truth was altogether 

5 wanting to the performances of those who, writing 
about battles which had scarcely anything in common 
with the battles of his times, servilely imitated his 
manner. The folly of Silius Italicus, in particular, is 
positively nauseous. He undertook to record in verse 

10 the vicissitudes of a great struggle between generals of 
the first order ; and his narrative is made up of the hid- 
eous wounds which these generals inflicted with their 
own hands. Asdrubal flings a spear, which grazes the 
shoulder of the consul Nero ; but Nero sends his spear 

15 into Asdrubal's side. Fabius slays Thuris and Butes and 
Maris and Arses, and the longhaired Adherbes, and the 
gigantic Thylis, and Sapharus and Moneesus, and the 
trumpeter Morinus. Hannibal runs Perusinus through 
the groin with a stake, and breaks the backbone of Tele- 

20 sinus with a huge stone. This detestable fashion was 
copied in modern times, and continued to prevail down 
to the age of Addison. Several versifiers had described 
William turning thousands to flight by his single prowess, 
and dyeing the Boyne with Irish blood. Nay, so esti- 

25 mable a writer as John Philips, the author of the " Splen- 
did Shilling," represented Marlborougli as having won the 
battle of Blenheim merely by strength of muscle and 
skill in fence. The following lines may serve as an 
example : — 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 119 

" Churchill, viewing where 
The violence of Tallard most prevails, 
Came to oppose his slaughtering arm. With speed 
Precipitate he rode, urging his way 
O'er hills of gasping heroes, and fallen steeds 
Rolling in death. Destruction, grim with blood, 
Attends his furious course. Around his head 
The glowing balls play innocent, while he 
With dire impetuous sway deals fatal blows 
Among the flying Gauls. In Gallic blood 
He dyes his reeking sword, and strews the ground 
With headless ranks. What can they do ? Or how 
Withstand his wide-destroying sword ?" 

Addison, with excellent sense and taste, departed from 
this ridiculous fashion. He reserved his praise for the 
qualities which made Marlborough truly great, — en- 
ergy, sagacity, military science. But, above all, the poet 
extolled the firmness of that mind which, in the midst 5 
of confusion, uproar, and slaughter, examined and dis- 
posed everything with the serene wisdom of a higher 
intelligence. 

Here it was that he introduced the famous comparison 
of Marlborough to an Angel guiding the whirlwind. We 10 
will not dispute the general justice of Johnson's remarks 
on this passage. But we must point out one circum- 
stance which appears to have escaped all the critics. 
The extraordinary effect which this simile produced 
when it first appeared, and which to the following gen- 15 
eration seemed inexplicable, is doubtless to be chiefly 
attributed to a line which most readers now regard as a 
feeble parenthesis : — 



120 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

"Such as, of late, o'er pale Britannia passed." 

Addison spoke, not of a storm, but of the storm. The 
great tempest of November, 1703, the only tempest which 
in our latitude has equalled the rage of a tropical hurri- 
cane, had left a dreadful recollection in the minds of all 

5 men. No other tempest was ever in this country the 
occasion of a parliamentary address or of a public fast. 
Whole fleets had been cast away. Large mansions had 
been blown down. One prelate had been buried beneath 
the ruins of his palace. Loudon and Bristol had pre- 

10 sented the appearance of cities just sacked. Hundreds 
of families were still in mourning. The prostrate trunks 
of large trees, and the ruins of houses, still attested, in 
all the southern counties, the fury of the blast. The 
popularity which the simile of the Angel enjoyed among 

15 Addison's contemporaries, has always seemed to us to 

be a remarkable instance of the advantage which, in 

rhetoric and poetry, the particular has over the general. 

Soon after the " Campaign," was published Addison's 

Narrative of his Travels in Italy. The first effect pro- 

20 duced by this narrative was disappointment. The crowd 
of readers who expected politics and scandal, specula- 
tions on the projects of Victor Amadeus, and anecdotes 
about the jollities of convents and the amours of cardi- 
nals and nuns, were confounded by finding that the 

25 writer's mind was much more occupied by the Avar be- 
tween the Trojans and Rutulians than by the war between 
France and Austria ; and that he seemed to have heard 
no scandal of later date than the gallantries of the 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 121 

Empress Faustinia. In time, however, the judgment of the 
many was overruled by that of the few ; and, before the 
book was reprinted, it was so eagerly sought that it sold 
for five times the original price. It is still read with 
pleasure : the style is pure and flowing ; the classical 5 
quotations and allusions are numerous and happy ; and 
we are now and then charmed by that singularly humane 
and delicate humor in which Addison excelled all men. 
Yet this agreeable work, even when considered merely 
as the history of a literary tour, may justly be censured 10 
on account of its faults of omission. We have already 
said that, though rich in extracts from the Latin poets, 
it contains scarcely any references to the Latin orators 
and historians. We must add, that it contains little, or 
rather no, information respecting the history and litera- 15 
ture of modern Italy. To the best of our remembrance, 
Addison does not mention Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, 
Boiardo, Berni, Lorenzo de' Medici, or Machiavelli. He 
coldly tells us that at Ferrara he saw the tomb of Ari- 
osto, and that at Venice he heard the gondoliers sing 20 
verses of Tasso. But for Tasso and Ariosto he cared far 
less than for Valerius Flaccus and Sidonius Apollinaris. 
The gentle flow of the Ticin brings a line of Silius to his 
mind. The sulphurous steam of Albula suggests to him 
several passages of Martial. But he has not a word to 25 
say of the illustrious dead of Santa Croce ; he crosses 
the wood of Ravenna without recollecting the Spectre 
Huntsman, and wanders up and down Rimini without 
one thought of Francesca. At Paris he had eagerly 
sought an introduction to Boileau ; but he seems not to 



122 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

have been at all aware that at Florence he was in the 
vicinity of a poet with whom Boileau could not sustain 
a comparison, of the greatest lyric poet of modern times, 
Vincenzio Filicaja. This is the more remarkable, because 

5 Filicaja was the favorite poet of the accomplished 
Somers, under whose protection Addison travelled, and 
to whom the account of the Travels is dedicated. The 
truth is, that Addison knew little, and cared less, about 
the literature of modern Italy. His favorite models 

10 were Latin. His favorite critics were French. Half 
the Tuscan poetry that he had read seemed to him mon- 
strous, and the other half tawdry. 

His Travels were followed by the lively opera of " Ros- 
amond." This piece was ill set to music, and therefore 

15 failed on the stage, but it completely succeeded in print, 
and is indeed excellent in its kind. The smoothness 
with which the verses glide, and the elasticity with which 
they bound, is, to our ears at least, very pleasing. We 
are inclined to think that if Addison had left heroic 

20 couplets to Pope, and blank verse to Rowe, and had em- 
ployed himself in writing airy and spirited songs, his 
reputation as a poet would have stood far higher than it 
now does. Some years after his death, " Rosamond " was 
set to new music by Doctor Arne ; and was performed 

25 with complete success. Several passages long retained 
their popularity, and were daily sung, dui-ing the latter 
part of George the Second's reign, at all the harpsichords 
in England. 

While Addison thus amused himself, his prospects, 
and the prospects of his party, were constantly becoming 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 123 

brighter and brighter. In the spring of 1705 the minis- 
ters were freed from the restraint imposed by a House of 
Commons in which Tories of the most perverse class 
had the ascendency. The elections were favorable to 
the Whigs. The coalition which had been tacitly and 5 
gradually formed was now openly avowed. The Great 
Seal was given to Cowper. Somers and Halifax were 
sworn of the Council. Halifax was sent in the follow- 
ing year to carry the decorations of the order of the 
garter to the Electoral Prince of Hanover, and was ac- 10 
companied on his honorable mission by Addison, who 
had just been made Undersecretary of State. The Sec- 
retary of State under whom Addison first served was Sir 
Charles Hedges, a Tory. But Hedges was soon dis- 
missed to make room for the most vehement of Whigs, 15 
Charles, Earl of Sunderland. In every department of 
the state, indeed, the High Churchmen were compelled 
to give place to their opponents. At the close of 1707, 
the Tories who still remained in office strove to rally, 
with Harley at their head. But the attempt, though 20 
favored by the Queen, who had always been a Tory at 
heart, and who had now quarrelled with the Duchess of 
Marlborough, was unsuccessful. The time was not yet. 
The Captain General was at the height of popularity and 
glory. The Low Church party had a majority in Parli- 25 
ament. The country squires and rectors, though occa- 
sionally uttering a savage growl, were for the most part 
in a state of torpor, which lasted till they were roused 
into activity, and indeed into madness, by the prosecu- 
tion of Sacheverell. Harley and his adherents were 



124 MACAU LAY'S ESSAYS. 

compelled to retire. The victory of the Whigs was 
complete. At the general election of 1708, their strength 
in the House of Commons became irresistible ; and 
before the end of that year, Somers was made Lord Pres- 

5 ident of the Council, and Wharton Lord Lieutenant of 
Ireland. 

Addison sat for Malmsbury in the House of Commons 
which was elected in 1708. But the House of Com- 
mons was not the field for him. The bashfulness of his 

10 nature made his wit and eloquence useless in debate. 
He once rose, but could not overcome his diffidence, and 
ever after remained silent. Nobody can think it strange 
that a great writer should fail as a speaker. But many, 
probably, will think it strange that Addison's failure as 

15 a speaker should have had no unfavorable effect on his 
success as a politician. In our time, a man of high rank 
and great fortune might, though speaking very little and 
very ill, hold a considerable post. But it would now be 
inconceivable that a mere adventurer, a man who, when 

20 out of office, must live by his pen, should in a few years 
become successively Undersecretary of State, chief sec- 
retary for Ireland, and Secretary of State, without some 
oratorical talent. Addison, without high birth, and with 
little property, rose to a post which dukes, the heads of 

25 the great houses of Talbot, Eussell, and Bentinck, have 
thought it an honor to till. Without opening his lips in 
debate, he rose to a post the highest that Chatham or 
Fox ever reached. And this he did before he liad been 
nine years in Parliament. We must look for the expla- 
nation of this seeming miracle to the peculiar circum- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 125 

stances in which that generation was placed. During 
the interval which elapsed between the time when the 
Censorship of the Press ceased, and the time when par- 
liamentary proceedings began to be freely reported, 
literary talents were, to a public man, of much more 5 
importance, and oratorical talents of much less impor- 
tance, than in our time. At present, the best way of 
giving rapid and wide publicity to a fact or an argument 
is to introduce that fact or argument into a speech made 
in Parliament. If a political tract were to appear supe- 10 
rior to the '' Conduct of the Allies," or to the best num- 
bers of the Freeholder, the circulation of such a tract 
would be languid indeed when compared with the circula- 
tion of every remarkable word uttered in the deliberations 
of the legislature. A speech made in the House of Com- 15 
mons at four in the morning is on thirty thousand tables 
before ten. A speech made on the Monday is read on 
the Wednesday by multitudes in Antrim and Aberdeen- 
shire. The orator, by the help of the shorthand writer, 
has to a great extent superseded the pamphleteer. It 20 
was not so in the reign of Anne. The best speech could 
then produce no effect except on those who heard it. 
It was only by means of the press that the opinion of 
the public without doors could be influenced ; and the 
opinion of the public without doors could not but be of 25 
the highest importance in a country governed by parlia- 
ments, and indeed at that time governed by triennial 
parliaments. The pen was, therefore, a more formidable 
political engine than the tongue. Mr. Pitt and Mr. Fox 
contended only in Parliament. But Walpole and Pul- 



126 MA CAUL AY'S ESSAYS. 

teney, the Pitt and Fox of an earlier period, had not done 
half of what was necessary, when they sat down amidst 
the acclamations of the House of Commons. They had 
still to plead their cause before the country, and this 

5 they could only do by means of the press. Their works 
are now forgotten. But it is certain that there were in 
Grub Street few more assiduous scribblers of Thoughts, 
Letters, Answers, Remarks, than thes« two great chiefs 
of parties. Pulteney, when leader of the Opposition, 

10 and possessed of thirty thousand a year, edited the 
Craftsman. Walpole, though not a man of literary 
habits, was the author of at least ten pamphlets, and 
retouched and corrected many more. These facts suffi- 
ciently show of how great importance literary assistance 

15 then was to the contending parties. St. John was cer- 
tainly, in Anne's reign, the best Tory speaker; Cowper 
was probably the best Whig speaker. But it may well 
be doubted whether St. John did so much for the Tories 
as Swift, and whether Cowper did so much for the Whigs 

20 as Addison. When these things are duly considered, it 
will not be thought strange that Addison should have 
climbed higher in the state than any other Englishman 
has ever, by means merely of literary talents, been able to 
climb. Swift would, in all probability, have climbed as 

25 high, if he had not been encumbered by his cassock and 
his pudding sleeves. As far as the homage of the great 
went. Swift had as much of it as if he had been Lord- 
Treasurer. 

To the influence which Addison derived from his lit- 
erary talents was added all the influence which arises 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 127 

from character. The world, always ready to think the 
worst of needy political adventurers, was forced to make 
one exception. Eestlessness, violence, audacity, laxity 
of principle, are the vices ordinarily attributed to that 
class of men. But faction itself could not deny that 5 
Addison had, through all changes of fortune, been strictly 
faithful to his early opinions, and to his early friends ; 
that his integrity was without stain ; that his whole 
deportment indicated a fine sense of the becoming ; that 
in the utmost heat of controversy, his zeal was tempered 10 
by a regard for truth, humanity, and social decorum ; 
that no outrage could ever provoke him to retaliation 
unworthy of a Christian and a gentleman ; and that his 
only faults were a too sensitive delicacy, and a modesty 
which amounted to bashfulness. 15 

He was undoubtedly one of the most popular men of 
his time ; and much of his popularity he owed, we be- 
lieve, to that very timidity which his friends lamented. 
That timidity often prevented him from exhibiting his 
talents to the best advantage. But it propitiated Nem- 20 
esis. It averted that envy which would otherwise have 
been excited by fame so splendid, and by so rapid an 
elevation. No man is so great a favorite with the pub- 
lic as he who is at once an object of admiration, of 
respect, and of pity ; and such were the feelings which 25 
Addison inspired. Those who enjoyed the privilege of 
hearing his familiar conversation, declared with one 
voice that it was superior even to his writings. The 
brilliant Mary Montague said, that she had known all 
the wits, and that Addison was the best company in the 



128 MACAU LAY'S ESSAYS. 

world. The malignant Pope was forced to own, that 
there was a charm in Addison's talk which could be 
found nowhere else. Swift, when burning with animos- 
ity against the Whigs, could not but confess to Stella 

5 that, after all, he had never known any associate so 
agreeable as Addison. Steele, an excellent judge of 
lively conversation, said, that the conversation of Addi- 
son was at once the most polite, and the most mirthful, 
that could be imagined : that it was Terence and Catul- 

10 lus in one, heightened by an exquisite something which 
was neither Terence nor Catullus, but Addison alone. 
Young, an excellent judge of serious conversation, said, 
that when Addison was at his ease, he went on in a 
noble strain of thought and language, so as to chain the 

15 attention of every hearer. Nor were Addison's great 
colloquial powers more admirable than the courtesy and 
the softness of heart which appeared in his conver- 
sation. At the same time, it would be too much to say 
that he was wholly devoid of the malice which is, per- 

20 haps, inseparable from a keen sense of the ludicrous. 
He had one habit which both Swift and Stella ap- 
plauded, and which we hardly know how to blame. If 
his first attempts to set a presuming dunce right were 
ill received, he changed his tone, " assented with civil 

25 leer," and lured the flattered coxcomb deeper and deeper 
into absurdity. That such was his practice we should, 
we think, have guessed from his works. The Tatler^s 
criticisms on Mr. Softly's sonnet, and the Sjjectator s 
dialogue with the politician who is so zealous for the 
honor of Lady Q — p — t — s, are excellent specimens of 
this innocent mischief. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 129 

Such were Addison's talents for conversation. But 
his rare gifts were not exhibited to crowds or to 
strangers. As soon as he entered a large company, as 
soon as he saw an unknown face, his lips were sealed, 
and his manners became constrained. None who met 5 
him only in great assemblies would have been able to 
believe that he was the same man who had often kept a 
few friends listening and laughing round a table, from 
the time when the play ended, till the clock of St. Paul's 
in Covent Garden struck four. Yet, even at such a table 10 
he was not seen to the best advantage. To enjoy his 
conversation in the highest perfection, it was necessary 
to be alone with him, and to hear him, in his own phrase, 
think aloud. " There is no such thing," he used to say, 
" as real conversation, but between two persons." 15 

This timidity, a timidity surely neither ungraceful 
nor unamiable, led Addison into the two most serious 
faults which can with justice be imputed to him. He 
found that wine broke the spell which lay on his fine 
intellect, and was therefore too easily seduced into con- 20 
vivial excess. Such excess was in that age regarded, 
even by grave men, as the most venial of all peccadilloes, 
and was so far from being a mark of ill-breeding, that it 
was almost essential to the character of a fine gentle- 
man. But the smallest speck is seen on a white ground ; 25 
and almost all the biographers of Addison have said 
something about this failing. Of any other statesman 
or writer of Queen Anne's reign, we should no more 
think of saying that he sometimes took too much wine, 
than that he wore a long wig and a sword. 



130 AIACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

To the excessive modesty of Addison's nature we 
must ascribe anotLer fault which generally arises from a 
very different cause. He became a little too fond of see- 
ing himself surrounded by a small circle of admirers, to 

5 whom he was as a king, or rather as a god. All these 
men were far inferior to him in ability, and some of 
them had very serious faults. Nor did those faults 
escape his observation ; for, if ever there was an eye 
which saw through and through men, it was the eye of 

10 Addison. But with the keenest observation, and the 
finest sense of the ridiculous, he had a large charity. 
The feeling with which he looked on most of his humble 
companions was one of benevolence, slightly tinctured 
with contempt. He was at perfect ease in their com- 

15 pany ; he was grateful for their devoted attachment ; 
and he loaded them with benefits. Their veneration for 
him appears to have exceeded that with which Johnson 
was regarded by Boswell, or Warburton by Hurd. It 
was not in the power of adulation to turn such a head, 

20 or deprave such a heart, as Addison's. JBut it must in 
candor be admitted that he contracted some of the faults 
which can scarcely be avoided by any person who is so 
unfortunate as to be the oracle of a small literary 
coterie. 

25 One member of this little society was Eustace Bud- 
gell, a young Templar of some literature, and a distant 
relation of Addison. There was at this time no stain on 
the character of Budgell, and it is not improbable that 
his career would have been prosperous and honorable, if 
the life of his cousin had been prolonged. But, when 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 131 

the master was laid in the grave, the disciple broke 
loose from all restraint, descended rapidly from one 
degree of vice and misery to another, ruined his fortune 
by follies, attempted to repair it by crimes, and at length 
closed a wicked and unhappy life by self-murder. Yet, 5 
to the last, the wretched man, gambler, lampooner, 
cheat, forger, as he was, retained his affection and ven- 
eration for Addison, and recorded those feelings in the 
last lines which he traced before he hid himself from 
infamy under London Bridge. 10 

Another of Addison's favorite companions was Am- 
brose Phillipps, a good Whig and a middling poet, who 
had the honor of bringing into fashion a species of com- 
position which has been called, after his name, Namby 
Pamby. But the most remarkable members of the little 15 
senate, as Pope long afterwards called it, were Richard 
Steele and Thomas Tickell. 

Steele had known Addison from childhood. They 
had been together at the Charter House and at Oxford ; 
but circumstances had then, for a time, separated them 20 
widely. Steele had left college without taking a degree, 
had been disinherited by a rich relation, had led a 
vagrant life, had served in the army, had tried to find 
the philosopher's stone, and had written a religious 
treatise and several comedies. He was one of those 25 
people whom it is impossible either to hate or to respect. 
His temper was sweet, his affections warm, his spirits 
lively, his passions strong, and his principles weak. 
His life was spent in sinning and repenting ; in incul. 
eating what was right, and doing what was wrong. In 



132 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

speculation, he was a man of piety and honor; in prac- 
tice he was much of the rake and a little of the swindler. 
He was, however, so good-natured that it was not easy 
to be seriously angry with him, and that even rigid 

5 moralists felt more inclined to pity than to blame him, 
when he diced himself into a spunging-house or drank 
himself into a fever. Addison regarded Steele with 
kindness not unmingled with scorn ; tried, with little 
success, to keep him out of scrapes ; introduced him to 

10 the great, procured a good place for him ; corrected his 
plays, and, though by no means rich, lent him large 
sums of money. One of these loans appears, from a 
letter dated in August, 1708, to have amounted to a 
thousand pounds. These pecuniary transactions proba- 

15 bly led to frequent bickerings. It is said that, on one 
occasion, Steele's negligence, or dishonesty, provoked 
Addison to repay himself by the help of a bailiff. We 
cannot join with Miss Aikin in rejecting this story. 
Johnson heard it from Savage, who heard it from Steele. 

20 Few private transactions which took place a hundred 
and twenty years ago, are proved by stronger evidence 
than this. But we can by no means agree with those 
who condemn Addison's severity. The most amiable of 
mankind may well be moved to indignation, when what 

25 he has earned hardly, and lent with great inconvenience 
to himself, for the purpose of relieving a friend in dis- 
tress, is squandered with insane profusion. We will 
illustrate our meaning by an example which is not the 
less striking because it is taken from fiction. Dr. 
Harrison, in Fielding's " Amelia," is represented as the 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 133 

most benevolent of human beings ; yet he takes in exe- 
cution, not only the goods, but the person of his friend 
Booth. Dr. Harrison resorts to this strong measure 
because he has been informed that Booth, while plead- 
ing poverty as an excuse for not paying just debts, has 5 
been buying fine jewellery, and setting up a coach. No 
person who is well acquainted with Steele's life and 
correspondence can doubt that he behaved quite as ill 
to Addison as Booth was accused of behaving to Dr. 
Harrison. The real history, Ave have little doubt, was 10 
something like this : A letter comes to Addison, im- 
ploring help in pathetic terras, and promising reforma- 
tion and speedy repayment. Poor Dick declares that he 
has not an inch of candle, or a bushel of coals, or credit 
with the butcher for a shoulder of mutton. Addison is 15 
moved. He determines to deny himself some medals 
which are wanting to his series of the Twelve Caesars ; 
to put off buying the new edition of Bayle's Dictionary ; 
and to wear his old sword and buckles another year. In 
this way he manages to send a hundred pounds to his 20 
friend. The next day he calls on Steele, and finds 
scores of gentlemen and ladies assembled. The fiddles 
are playing. The table is groaning under champagne, 
burgundy, and pyramids of sweetmeats. Is it strange 
that a man whose kindness is thus abused, should send 25 
sheriff's officers to reclaim what is due to him ? 

Tickell was a young man, fresh from Oxford, who had 
introduced himself to public notice by writing a most 
ingenious and graceful little poem in praise of the opera 
of " Rosamond." He deserved, and at length attained, 



134 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

the first place in Addison's friendship. For a time Steele 
and Tickell were on good terms. But they loved Addison 
too much to love each other, and at length became as 
bitter enemies as the rival bulls in Virgil. 

5 At the close of 1708 Wharton became Lord Lieutenant 
of Ireland, and appointed Addison Chief Secretary. 
Addison was consequently under the necessity of quit- 
ting London for Dublin. Besides the chief secretaryship, 
which was then worth about two thousand pounds a 

10 year, he obtained a patent appointing him keeper of the 
Irish Records for life, with a salary of three or four 
hundred a year. Budgell accompanied his cousin in the 
capacity of private secretary. 

Wharton and Addison had nothing in common but 

15 Whiggism. The Lord Lieutenant was not only licen- 
tious and corrupt, but was distinguished from other 
libertines and jobbers by a callous impudence which 
presented the strongest contrast to the Secretary's gen- 
tleness and delicacy. Many parts of the Irish adminis- 

20 tration at this time appear to have deserved serious 
blame. But against Addison there was not a murmur. 
He long afterwards asserted, what all the evidence 
which we have ever seen tends to prove, that his dili- 
gence and integrity gained the friendship of all the most 

25 considerable persons in Ireland. 

The parliamentary career of Addison in Ireland has, 
we think, wholly escaped the notice of all his biogra- 
phers. He was elected member for the borough of Cavan 
in the summer of 1709; and in the journals of two ses- 
sions his name frequently occurs. Some of the entries 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 135 

appear to indicate that he so far overcame his timidity 
as to make speeches. Nor is this by any means improb- 
able; for the Irisli House of Commons was a far less 
formidable audience than the English House ; and many 
tongues which were tied by fear in the greater assembly 5 
became fluent in the smaller. Gerard Hamilton, for 
example, who, from fear of losing the fame gained by his 
single speech, sat mute at Westminster during forty 
years, spoke with great effect at Dublin when he was 
secretary to Lord Halifax. 10 

While Addison was in Ireland, an event occurred to 
which he owes his high and permanent rank among 
British writers. As yet his fame rested on performances 
which, though highly respectable, were not built for 
duration, and which would, if he had produced nothing 15 
else, have now been almost forgotten ; on some excellent 
Latin verses ; on some English verses which occasionally 
rose above mediocrity, and on a book of travels, agree- 
ably written, but not indicating any extraordinary 
powers of mind. These works showed him to be a man 20 
of taste, sense, and learning. The time had come when 
he was to prove himself a man of genius, and to enrich 
our literature with compositions which will live as long 
as the English language. 

In the spring of 1709 Steele formed a literary project, 25 
of which he was far indeed from foreseeing the con- 
sequences. Periodical papers had during many years 
been published in London. Most of these were political ; 
but in some of them questions of morality, taste, and 
love-casuistry had been discussed. The literary merit of 



136 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

these works was small indeed ; and even their names 
are now known only to the curious. 

Steele had been appointed gazetteer by Sunderland, 
at the request, it is said, of Addison, and thus had access 

5 to foreign intelligence earlier and more authentic than 
was in those times within the reach of an ordinary news- 
writer. This circumstance seems to have suggested to 
him the scheme of publishing a periodical paper on a 
new plan. It was to appear on the days on which the 

10 post left London for the country, which were, in that 
generation, the Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. 
It was to contain the foreign news, accounts of theatri- 
cal representations, and the literary gossip of Will's and 
of the Grecian. It was also to contain remarks on the 

15 fashionable topics of the day, compliments to beauties, 
pasquinades on noted sharpers, and criticisms on popu- 
lar preachers. The aim of Steele does not appear to have 
been at first higher than this. He was not ill-qualified 
to conduct the work which he had planned. His public 

20 intelligence he drew from the best sources. He knew the 
town, and had paid dear for his knowledge. He had 
read much more than the dissipated men of that time 
were in the habit of reading. He was a rake among 
scholars, and a scholar among rakes. His style was easy 

25 and not incorrect ; and though liis wit and humor were 
of no high order, his gay animal spirits imparted to his 
compositions an air of vivacity which ordinary read- 
ers could hardly distinguish from comic genius. His 
writings have been well compared to those light wines 
which, though deficient in body and flavor, are yet a 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 137 

pleasant small drink, if not kept too long, or carried too 
far. 

Isaac Bickerstaff, Esquire, Astrologer, was an imagi- 
nary person, almost as well known in that age as Mr. 
l\aul Pry or Mr. Samuel Pickwick in ours. Swift had 5 
assumed the name of Bickerstaff in a satirical pamphlet 
against Partridge, the maker of almanacs. Partridge 
had been fool enough to publish a furious reply. Bick- 
erstaff had rejoined in a second pamphlet still more 
diverting than the first. All the wits had combined to 10 
keep up the joke, and the town was long in convulsions 
of laughter. Steele determined to employ the name 
Avhich this controversy had made popular ; and in 1709, 
it was announced that Isaac Bickerstalf, Esquire, Astrol- 
oger, was about to publish a paper called the Tatler. 15 

Addison had not been consulted about this scheme ; 
but as soon as he heard of it he determined to give his 
assistance. The effect of that assistance cannot be bet- 
ter described than in Steele's own words. " I fared," 
he said, " like a distressed prince who calls in a powerful 20 
neighbor to his aid. I was undone by my auxiliary. 
When I had once called him in, I could not subsist with- 
out dependence on him." " The paper," he says else- 
where, " was advanced indeed. It was raised to a greater 
thing than I intended it." 25 

It is probable that Addison, when he sent across St. 
George's Channel his first contributions to the Tatler, 
had no notion of the extent and variety of his own 
powers. He was the possessor of a vast mine, rich with 
a hundred ores. But he had been acquainted only with 



138 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

the least precious part of his treasures, and had hitherto 
contented himself with producing sometimes copper and 
sometimes lead, intermingled with a little silver. All 
at once, and by mere accident, he had lighted on an in- 

5 exhaustible vein of the finest gold. 

The mere choice and arrangement of his words would 
have sufficed to make his essays classical. For never, 
not even by Dryden, not even by Temple, had the Eng- 
lish language been written with such sweetness, grace, 

10 and facility. But this was the smallest part of Addi- 
son's praise. Had he clothed his thoughts in the half 
Prench style of Horace Walpole, or in the half Latin 
style of Dr. Johnson, or in the half German jargon of 
the present day, his genius would have triumphed over 

15 all faults of manner. As a moral satirist he stands un- 
rivalled. If ever the best Tatlers and Spectators were 
equalled in their own kind, we should be inclined to 
guess that it must have been by the lost comedies of 
Menander. 

20 In wit, properly so called, Addison was not inferior 
to Cowley or Butlei'. No single ode of Cowley contains 
so many happy analogies as are crowded into the lines 
to Sir Godfrey Kneller ; and we would undertake to 
collect from the S^jectators as great a number of ingen- 

25 ious illustrations as can be found in "Hudibras." The 
still higher faculty of invention Addison possessed in 
still larger measure. The numerous fictions, generally 
original, often wild and grotesque, but always singularly 
graceful and happy, which are found in his essays, fully 
entitle him to the rank of a great poet, a rank to which 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 139 

his metrical compositions give him no claim. As an 
observer of life, of manners, of all the shades of human 
character, he stands in the first class. And what he 
observed he had the art of communicating in two widely 
different ways. He could describe virtues, vices, habits, 5 
whims as well as Clarendon. But he could do something 
better. He could call human beings into existence, and 
make them exhibit themselves. If we wish to find any- 
thing more vivid than Addison's best portraits, we must 
go either to Shakespeare or to Cervantes. 10 

But what shall we say of Addison's humor, of his sense 
of the ludicrous, of his power of awakening that sense 
in others, and of drawing mirth from incidents which 
occur every day, and from little peculiarities of temper 
and manner, such as may be found in every man ? We 15 
feel the charm : we give ourselves up to it ; but we strive 
in vain to analyze it. 

Perhaps the best way of describing Addison's peculiar 
pleasantry is to compare it with the pleasantry of some 
other great satirists. The three most eminent masters 20 
of the art of ridicule during the eighteenth century, Avere, 
we conceive, Addison, Swift, and Voltaire. Which of 
the three had the greatest power of moving laughter 
may be questioned. But each of them, within his own 
domain, was supreme. 25 

Voltaire is the prince of buffoons. His merriment is 
without disguise or restraint. He gambols ; he grins ; 
he shakes the sides ; he points the finger ; he turns up 
the nose ; he shoots out the tongue. The manner of 
Swift is the very opposite to this. He moves laughter, 



140 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

but he never joins in it. He appears in his works such as 
he appeared in society. All the company are convulsed 
with merriment, while the Dean, the author of all the 
mirth, preserves an invincible gravity, and even sourness 

5 of aspect, and gives utterance to the most eccentric 
and ludicrous fancies, with the air of a man reading the 
commination service. 

The manner of Addison is as remote from that of 
Swift as from that of Voltaire. He neither laughs out 

10 like the French wit, nor, like the Irish wit, throws a 
double portion of severity into his countenance while 
laughing inwardly ; but preserves a look peculiarly his 
own, a look of demure serenity, disturbed only by an arch 
sparkle of the eye, an almost imperceptible elevation of 

15 the brow, an almost imperceptible curl of the lip. His 
tone is never that either of a Jack Pudding or of a cynic. 
It is that of a gentleman, in whom the quickest sense of 
the ridiculous is constantly tempered by good nature and 
good breeding. 

20 We own that the humor of Addison is, in our opinion, 
of a more delicious flavor than the humor of either Swift 
or Voltaire. Thus much, at least, is certain, that both 
Swift and Voltaire have been successfully mimicked, and 
that no man has yet been able to mimic Addison. The 

25 letter of the Abbe Coyer to Pansophe is Voltaire all over, 
and imposed, during a long time, on the Academicians 
of Paris. There are passages in Arbuthnot's satirical 
works which we, at least, cannot distinguish from Swift's 
best writing. But of the many eminent men Avho have 
made Addison their model, though several have copied 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 141 

his mere diction with happy effect, noue have been able 
to catch the tone of his pleasantry. In the World, in 
the Connoisseur, in the Mirror, in the Loimger, there are 
numerous papers written in obvious imitation of his 
Tatlers and Spectators. Most of these papers have some 5 
merit ; many are very lively and amusing ; but there is 
not a single one which could be passed off as Addison's 
on a critic of the smallest perspicacity. 

But that which chiefly distinguishes Addison from 
Swift, from Voltaire, from almost all the other great 10 
masters of ridicule, is the grace, the nobleness, the moral 
purity, which we find even in his merriment. Severity, 
gradually hardening and darkening into misanthropy, 
characterizes the works of Swift. The nature of Vol- 
taire was, indeed, not inhuman; but he venerated noth- 15 
ing. Neither in the masterpieces of art nor in the purest 
examples of virtue, neither in the Great First Cause nor 
in the awful enigma of the grave, could he see anything 
but subjects for drollery. The more solemn and august 
the theme, the more monkey-like was his grimacing and 20 
chattering. The mirth of Swift is the mirth of Mephisto- 
philes ; the mirth of Voltaire is the mirth of Puck. 
If, as Soame Jenyns oddly imagined, a portion of the 
happiness of seraphim and just men made perfect be 
derived from an exquisite perception of the ludicrous, 25 
their mirth must surely be none other than the mirth of 
Addison ; a mirth consistent with tender compassion for 
all that is frail, and with profound reverence for all that 
is sublime. Nothing great, nothing amiable, no moral 
duty, no doctrine of natural or revealed religion, has 



142 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

ever been associated by Addison with any degrading 
idea. His hnmanity is without a parallel in literary liis- 
tory. The highest proof of virtue is to possess bound- 
less power without abusing it. No kind of power is 

3 more formidable than the power of making men ridicu- 
lous ; and that power Addison possessed in boundless 
measure. How grossly that power was abused by Swift 
and by Voltaire is well known. But of Addison it may 
be confidently affirmed that he has blackened no man's 

10 character ; nay, that it would be difficult, if not impossi- 
ble, to find in all the volumes which he has left us a 
single taunt which can be called ungenerous or unkind. 
Yet he had detractors, whose malignity might have 
seemed to justify as terrible a revenge as that which 

15 men, not superior to him in genius, wreaked on Bettes- 
worth and on Franc de Fompignan. He was a politi- 
cian ; he was the best writer of his party ; he lived in 
times of fierce excitement, in times when persons of 
high character and station stooped to scurrility such as 

20 is now practised only by the basest of mankind. Yet 
no provocation and no example could induce him to 
return railing for railing. 

Of the service which his essays rendered to morality 
it is difficult to speak too highly. It is true, that, when 

25 the Tatler appeared, that age of outrageous profaneness 
and licentiousness which followed the Restoration had 
passed away. Jeremy Collier had shamed the theatres 
into something which, compared with the excesses of 
Etheredge and Wycherley, might be called decency. 
Yet there still lingered in the public mind a pernicious 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 143 

notion that there was some connection between genius 
and profligacy ; between the domestic virtues and the 
sullen formality of the Puritans. That error it is the 
glory of Addison to have dispelled. He taught the nation 
that the faith and the morality of Hale and Tillotson 5 
might be found in company with wit more sparkling 
than the wit of Congreve, and with humor richer than 
the humor of Vanbrugh. So effectually, indeed, did he 
retort on vice the mockery which had recently been 
directed against virtue, that, since his time, the open lO 
violation of decency has always been considered among 
us as the mark of a fool. And this revolution, the great- 
est and most salutary ever effected by any satirist, he 
accomplished, be it remembered, without writing one 
personal lampoon. 15 

In the early contributions of Addison to the Tatler, 
his peculiar powers were not fully exhibited. Yet from 
the first, his superiority to all his coadjutors was evident. 
Some of his later Tatlers are fully equal to anything 
that he ever wrote. Among the portraits, we most ad- 20 
mire Tom Folio, Ned Softly, and the Political Uphol- 
sterer. The proceedings of the Court of Honor, the 
Thermometer of Zeal, the story of the Frozen Words, 
the Memoirs of the Shilling, are excellent specimens of 
that ingenious and lively species of fiction in which Ad- 25 
dison excelled all men. There is one still better paper 
of the same class. But though that paper, a hundred and 
thirty-three years ago, was probably thought as edifying 
as one of Smalridge's sermons, we dare not indicate it to 
the squeamish readers of the nineteenth century. 



144 MAC A ULA Y ' S ESS A YS. 

During the session of Parliament whicli commenced 
in November, 1709, and which the impeachment of Sach- 
everell has made memorable, Addison appears to have 
resided in London. The Tatler was now more popular 

5 that any periodical paper had ever been ; and his connec- 
tion with it was generally known. It was not known, 
however, that almost everything good in the Tatler was 
his. The truth is, that the fifty or sixty numbers which 
we owe to him were not merely the best, but so decidedly 

10 the best that any five of them are more valuable than all 
the two hundred numbers in which he had no share. 

He required, at this time, all the solace which he 
could derive from literary success. The Queen had 
always disliked the Whigs. She had during some years 

15 disliked the Marlborough family. But, reigning by a 
disputed title, she could not venture directly to oppose 
herself to a majority of both Houses of Parliament ; and, 
engaged as she was in a war on the event of which her 
own crown was staked, she could not venture to dis- 

20 grace a great and successful general. But at length, in 
the year 1710, the cause which had restrained her from 
showing her aversion to the Low Church party ceased to 
operate. The trial of Sacheverell produced an outbreak 
of public feeling scarcely less violent than the outbreaks 

25 which we can ourselves remember in 1820, and in 1831. 
The country gentlemen, the country clergymen, the rab- 
ble of the towns, were all, for once, on the same side. It 
was clear that, if a general election took place before the 
excitement abated, tlie Tories would have a majority. 
The services of Marlborough had been so splendid that 



LIFE AND Wni TINGS OF ADDISON. 145 

they were no longer necessary. The Queen's throne was 
secure from all attack on the part of Louis. Indeed, it 
seemed much more likely that the English and Ger- 
man armies would divide the spoils of Versailles and 
Marli than that a Marshal of France would bring back 5 
the Pretender to St. James's. The Queen, acting by the 
advice of Harley, determined to dismiss her servants. 
In June the change commenced. Sunderland was the 
first who fell. The Tories exulted over his fall. The 
Whigs tried, during a few weeks, to persuade themselves 10 
that her majesty had acted only from personal dislike 
to the Secretary, and that she meditated no further 
alteration. But, early in August, Godolphin was sur- 
prised by a letter from Anne, which directed him to 
break his white staff. Even after this event, the irreso- 15 
lution or dissimulation of Harley kept up the hopes of 
the Whigs during another month ; and then the ruin 
became rapid and violent. The Parliament was dis- 
solved. The ministers were turned out. The Tories 
were called to office. The tide of popularity ran vio- 20 
lently in favor of the High Church party. That party, 
feeble in the late House of Commons, was now irresisti- 
ble. The power which the Tories had thus suddenly 
acquired, they used with blind and stupid ferocity. The 
howl which the whole pack set up for prey and for blood 25 
appalled even him who had roused and unchained them. 
When, at this distance of time, we calmly review the 
conduct of the discarded ministers, we cannot but feel a 
movement of indignation at the injustice with which 
they were treated. No body of men had ever adminis- 



146 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

tered the government with more energy, ability, and 
moderation ; and their success had been proportioned to 
their wisdom. They had saved Holland and Germany. 
They had humbled France. They had, as it seemed, all 

5 but torn Spain from the house of Bourbon. They had 
made England the first power in Europe. At home they 
had united England and Scotland. They had respected 
the rights of conscience and the liberty of the subject. 
They retired, leaving their country at the height of pros- 

10 perity and glory. And yet they were pursued to their 
retreat by such a roar of obloquy as was never raised 
against the government which threw away thirteen col- 
onies, or against the government which sent a gallant 
army to perish in the ditches of Walcheren. 

15 None of the Whigs suffered more in the general wreck 
than Addison. He had just sustained some heavy pecu- 
niary losses, of the nature of which we are imperfectly 
informed, when his secretaryship was taken from hira. 
He had reason to believe that he should also be deprived 

20 of the small Irish oflB.ce which he held by patent. He 
had just resigned his fellowship. It seems probable 
that he had already ventured to raise his eyes to a great 
lady, and that, while his political friends were in power, 
and while his own fortunes were rising, he had been, in 

25 the phrase of the romances which were then fashion- 
able, permitted to hope. But Mr. Addison the ingenious 
writer, and Mr. Addison the chief secretary, were, in 
her ladyship's opinion, two very different persons. All 
these calamities united, however, could not disturb the 
serene cheerfulness of a mind conscious of innocence, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 147 

and rich in its own wealth. He told his friends, with 
smiling resignation, that they ought to admire his phi- 
losophy ; that he had lost at once his fortune, his place, 
his fellowship, and his mistress ; that he must think of 
turning tutor again, and yet that his spirits were as 5 
good as ever. 

He had one consolation. Of the unpopularity which 
his friends had incurred, he had no share. Such was 
the esteem with which he was regarded that, while the 
most violent measures were taken for the purpose of 10 
forcing Tory members on Whig corporations, he was 
returned to Parliament without even a contest. Swift, 
who was now in London, and who had already deter- 
mined on quitting the Whigs, wrote to Stella in these 
remarkable words : " The Tories carry it among the new 15 
members six to one. Mr. Addison's election has passed 
easy and undisputed ; and I believe if he had a mind to 
be king he would hardly be refused." 

The good will with which the Tories regarded Addi- 
son is the more honorable to him, because it had not 20 
been purchased by any concession on his part. During 
the general election he published a political journal, 
entitled the Whig ExaDilner. Of that journal it may 
be sufficient to say that Johnson, in spite of his strong 
political prejudices, pronounced it to be superior in wit 25 
to any of Swift's writings on the other side. When it 
ceased to appear. Swift, in a letter to Stella, expressed 
his exultation at the death of so formidable an antago- 
nist. " He might well rejoice," says Johnson, " at the 
death of that which he could not have killed." •'•' On no 



148 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

occasion," he adds, " was the genius of Addison more 
vigorously exerted, and on none did the superiority of 
his powers more evidently appear." 

The only use which Addison appears to have made of 
5 the favor with which he was regarded by the Tories was 
to save some of his friends from the general ruin of the 
Whig party. He felt himself to be in a situation which 
made it his duty to take a decided part in politics. But 
the case of Steele and of Ambrose Phillipps was differ- 

10 ent. For Phillipps, Addison even condescended to so- 
licit, with what success we have not ascertained. Steele 
held two places. He was gazetteer, and he was also a 
commissioner of stamps. The Gazette was taken from 
him. But he was suffered to retain his place in the 

15 Stamp Office, on an implied understanding that he should 
not be active against the new government ; and he was, 
during more than two years, induced by Addison to 
observe this armistice with tolerable fidelity. 

Isaac Bickerstaff accordingly became silent upon poli- 

20 tics, and the article of news which had once formed about 
one-third of his paper, altogether disappeared. The 
Tatler had completely changed its character. It was now 
nothing but a series of essays on books, morals, and 
manners. Steele therefore resolved to bring it to a 

25 close, and to commence a new work on an improved 
plan. It was announced that this new work would be 
published daily. The undertaking was generally re- 
garded as bold, or rather rash ; but the event amply 
justified the confidence with which Steele relied on the 
fertility of Addison's genius. On the second of January, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 149 

1711, appeared the last Tatler. At the beginning of 
March following appeared the first of an incomparable 
series of papers, containing observations on life and lit- 
eratnre by an imaginary spectator. 

The Spectator himself was conceived and drawn by 5 
Addison ; and it is not easy to doubt that the portrait 
was meant to be in some features a likeness of the 
painter. The Spectator is a gentleman who, after pass- 
ing a studious youth at the university, has travelled on 
classic ground, and has bestowed much attention on curi- 10 
ous points of antiquity. He has, on his return, fixed 
his residence in London, and has observed all the forms 
of life which are to be found in that great city ; has daily 
listened to the wits of Will's, has smoked with the 
philosophers of the Grecian, and has mingled with the 15 
parsons at Child's, and with the politicians at the St. 
James's. In the morning, he often listens to the hum 
of the Exchange ; in the evening, his face is constantly 
to be seen in the pit of Drury Lane Theatre. Bvit 
an insurmountable bashfulness prevents him from 20 
opening his mouth except in a small circle of intimate 
friends. 

These friends were first sketched by Steele. Four of 
the club, the templar, the clergyman, the soldier, and 
the merchant, were uninteresting figures, fit only for a 25 
background. But the other two, an old country baronet 
and an old town rake, though not delineated with a very 
delicate pencil, had some good strokes. Addison took 
the rude outlines into his own hands, retouched them, 
colored them, and is in truth the creator of the Sir 



150 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Eoger de Coverley and the Will Honeycomb with whom 
we are all familiar. 

The plan of the Spectator must be allowed to be both 
original and eminently happy. Every valuable essay in 
5 the series may be read with pleasure separately ; yet the 
five or six hundred essays form a whole, and a whole 
which has the interest of a novel. It must be remem- 
bered, too, that at that time no novel, giving a lively 
and powerful picture of the common life and manners 

10 of England, had appeared. Richardson was working as 
a compositor. Fielding was robbing birds' nests. Smol- 
lett was not yet born. The narrative, therefore, which 
connects together the Spectator's essays, gave to our 
ancestors their first taste of an exquisite and untried 

15 pleasure. That narrative was indeed constructed with 
no art or labor. The events were such events as occur 
every day. Sir Roger comes up to town to see Eugenio, 
as the worthy baronet always calls Prince Eugene, goes 
with the Spectator on the water to Spring Gardens, 

20 walks among the tombs in the Abbey, and is frightened 
by the Mohawks, but conquers his apprehension so far 
as to go to the theatre Avhen the " Distressed Mother" is 
acted. The Spectator pays a visit in the summer to 
Coverley Hall, is charmed with the old house, the old 

2'' butler, and the old chaplain, eats a jack caught by Will 
Wimble, rides to the assizes, and hears a point of law 
discussed by Tom Touchy. At last a letter from the 
honest butler brings to the club the news that Sir Roger 
is dead. Will Honeycomb marries and reforms at sixty. 
The club breaks up ; and the Spectator resigns his func- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 151 

tions. Such events can hardly be said to form a plot ; 
yet they are related with such truth, such grace, such 
wit, such humor, such pathos, such knowledge of the 
human heart, such knowledge of the ways of the world, 
that they charm us on the hundredth perusal. We have 5 
not the least doubt that if Addison had written a novel, 
on an extensive plan, it would have been superior to any 
that we possess. As it is, he is entitled to be considered 
not only as the greatest of the English essayists, but as 
the forerunner of the great English novelists. 10 

We say this of Addison alone ; for Addison is the 
Spectator. About three-sevenths of the work are his ; 
and it is no exaggeration to say, that his worst essay is 
as good as the best essay of any of his coadjutors. His 
best essays approach near to absolute perfection ; nor is 15 
their excellence more wonderful then their variety. His 
invention never seems to flag ; nor is he ever under the 
necessity of repeating himself, or of wearing out a sub- 
ject. There are no dregs in his wine. He regales us 
after the fashion of that prodigal nabob who held that 20 
there was only one good glass in a bottle. As soon as 
we have tasted the first sparkling foam of a jest, it is 
withdrawn, and a fresh draught of nectar is at our lips. 
On the Monday, we have an allegory as lively and ingen- 
ious as Lucian's " Auction of Lives ; " on the Tuesday, an 25 
Eastern apologue as richly colored as the Tales of Sche- 
herezade ; on the Wednesday, a character described with 
the skill of La Bruyere ; on the Thursday, a scene from 
common life, equal to the best chapters in the " Vicar of 
Wakefield ; " on the Friday, some sly Horatian pleasantry 



152 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

on fashionable follies, — on hoops, patches, or puppet- 
shows ; and on the Saturday, a religious meditation, 
which will bear a comparison with the finest passages 
in Massillon. 

5 It is dangerous to select where there is so much that 
deserves the highest praise. We will venture, however, 
to say, that any person who wishes to form a notion of 
the extent and variety of Addison's powers, will do well 
to read at one sitting the following papers : the Two 

10 Visits to the .Abbey, the Visit to the Exchange, the 
Journal of the Retired Citizen, the Vision of Mirza, 
the Transmigrations of Pug the Monkey, and the Death 
of Sir Roger de Coverley. 

The least valuable of Addison's contributions to the 

15 Spectator are, in the judgment of our age, his critical 
papers. Yet his critical papers are always luminous, 
and often ingenious. The very worst of them must be 
regarded as creditable to him, when the character of the 
school in which he had been trained is fairly considered. 

20 The best of them were much too good for his readers. 
In truth, he was not so far behind our generation as he 
was before his own. No essays in the Spectator were 
more censured and-derided than those in which he raised 
his voice against the contempt with which our fine old 

25 ballads were regarded, and showed the scoffers that the 
same gold which, burnished and polished, gives lustre 
to the iEneid and the Odes of Horace, is mingled with 
the rude dross of " Chevy Chase." 

It is not strange that the success of the Spectator 
should have been such as no similar work has ever ob- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 153 

tained. The number of copies daily distributed was at 
first three thousand. It subsequently increased, and 
had risen to near four thousand when the stamp tax was 
imposed. That tax was fatal to a crowd of journals. 
The Spectator, however, stood its ground, doubled its 5 
price, and, though its circulation fell off, still yielded a 
large revenue both to the state and to the authors. For 
particular papers, the demand was immense ; of some, it 
is said, twenty thousand copies were required. But this 
was not all. To have the Spectator served up every lo 
morning with the bohea and rolls was a luxury for the 
few. The majority were content to wait till essays 
enough had appeared to form a volume. Ten thousand 
copies of each volume were immediately taken off, and 
new editions were called for. It must be remembered, 15 
that the population of England was then hardly a third 
of what it now is. The number of Englishmen who 
were in the habit of reading, was probably not a sixth of 
what it now is. A shopkeeper or a farmer who found 
any pleasure in literature, was a rarity. Nay, there was 20 
doubtless more than one knight of the shire whose coun- 
try seat did not contain ten books, receipt-books and 
books on farriery included. In these circumstances, the 
sale of the Sjjectator must be considered as indicating a 
popularity quite as great as that of the most successful 25 
Avorks of Sir Walter Scott and Mr. Dickens in our own 
time. 

At the close of 1712 the Spectator ceased to appear. 
It was probably felt that the shortfaced gentleman and 
his club had been long enough before the town ; and 



164 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

that it was time to withdraw them, and to replace them 
by a new set of characters. In a few weeks the first 
number of the Guardian was published. But the Guard- 
ian was unfortunate both in its birth and in its death. 
5 It began in dulness and disappeared in a tempest of fac- 
tion. The original plan was bad. Addison contributed 
nothing till sixty -six numbers had appeared ; and it was 
then impossible to make the Gitardian what the Specta- 
tor had been. Nestor Ironside and the Miss Lizards 

10 were people to whom even he could impart no interest. 
He could only furnish some excellent little essays, both 
serious and comic; and this he did. 

Why Addison gave no assistance to the Guardian, dur- 
ing the first two months of its existence, is a question 

15 which has puzzled the editors and biographers, but which 
seems to us to admit of a very easy solution. He was 
then engaged in bringing liis "Cato" on the stage. 

The first four acts of this drama had been lying in his 
desk since his return from Italy. His modest and sensi- 

20 tive nature shrank from the risk of a public and shame- 
ful failure ; and, though all who saw the manuscript 
were loud in praise, some thought it possible that an 
audience might become impatient even of very good 
rhetoric, and advised Addison to print the play without 

25 hazarding a representation. At length, after many fits 
of apprehension, the poet yielded to the urgency of his 
political friends, who hoped that the public would dis- 
cover some analogy between the followers of Caesar and 
the Tories, between Sempronius and the apostate Whigs, 
between Cato, struggling to the last for the liberties of 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 155 

Rome, and the band of patriots who still stood j&rm 
round Halifax and Wharton. 

Addison gave the play to the managers of Drury Lane 
Theatre, without stipulating for any advantage to him- 
self. They, therefore, thought themselves bound to 5 
spare no cost in scenery and dresses. The decorations, 
it is true, would not have pleased the skilful eye of Mr. 
Macready. Juba's waistcoat blazed with gold lace ; 
Marcia's hoop was worthy of a duchess on the birthday ; 
and Cato wore a wig worth fifty guineas. The prologue 10 
was written by Pope, and is undoubtedly a dignified and 
spirited composition. The part of the hero was excel- 
lently played by Booth. Steele undertook to pack a 
house. The boxes were in a blaze with the stars of the 
Peers in Opposition. The pit was crowded with atten- 15 
tive and friendly listeners from the Inns of Court and 
the literary coffee-houses. Sir Gilbert Heathcote, Gov- 
ernor of the Bank of England, was at the head of a pow- 
erful body of auxiliaries from the city, warm men and 
true Whigs, but better known at Jonathan's and Garra- 20 
way's than in the haunts of wits and critics. 

These precautions were quite superfluous. The Tories, 
as a body, regarded Addison with no unkind feelings. 
Nor was it for their interest, professing, as they did, pro- 
found reverence for law and prescription, and abhorrence 25 
both of popular insurrections and of standing armies, to 
appropriate to themselves reflections thrown on the great 
military chief and demagogue, who, with the support of 
the legions and of the common people, subverted all the 
ancient institutions of his country. Accordingly, every 



156 MAC A UL AY'S ESSAYS. 

shout that was raised by the members of the Kit Cat 
was echoed by the High Churchmen of the October; 
and the curtain at length fell amidst thunders of unan- 
imous applause. 

5 The delight and admiration of the town were described 
by the G^iardian in terms which we might attribute 
to partiality, were it not that the Exammer, the organ 
of the ministry, held similar language. The Tories, 
indeed, found much to sneer at in the conduct of their 

10 opponents. Steele had on this, as on other occasions, 
shown more zeal than taste or judgment. The honest 
citizens who marched under the orders of Sir Gibby, as 
he was facetiously called, probably knew better when to 
buy and when to sell stock than when to clap and when 

15 to hiss at a play, and incurred some ridicule by making 
the hypocritical Sempronius their favorite, and by giv- 
ing to his insincere rants louder plaudits than they 
bestowed on the temperate eloquence of Cato. Whar- 
ton, too, who had the incredible effrontery to applaud 

20 the lines about flying from prosperous vice and from the 
power of impious men to a private station, did not 
escape the sarcasms of those who justly thought that he 
could fly from nothing more vicious or impious than 
himself. The epilogue, which was written by Garth, a 

25 zealous Whig, was severely and not unreasonably cen- 
sured as ignoble and out of place. But Addison was 
described, even by the bitterest Tory writers, as a gen- 
tleman of wit and virtue, in whose friendship many per- 
sons of both parties were happy, and whose name ought 
not to be mixed up with factious squabbles. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 157 

Of the jests by which the triumph of the Whig party 
was disturbed, the most severe and happy was Boling- 
broke's. Between two acts he sent for Booth to his box, 
and presented him, before the whole theatre, with a 
purse of fifty guineas for defending the cause of liberty 5 
so well against a perpetual Dictator. This was a pungent 
allusion to the attempt which Marlborough had made, 
not long before his fall, to obtain a patent creating him 
Captain General for life. 

It was April ; and in April, a hundred and thirty years 10 
ago, the London season was thought to be far advanced. 
During a whole month, however, " Cato " was performed to 
overflowing houses, and brought into the treasury of the 
theatre twice the gains of an ordinary spring. In the 
summer the Drury Lane company went down to the Act 15 
at Oxford, and there, before an audience which retained 
an affectionate remembrance of Addison's accomplish- 
ments and virtues, his tragedy was enacted during 
several days. The gownsmen began to besiege the 
theatre in the forenoon, and by one in the afternoon all 20 
the seats were filled. 

About the merits of the piece which had so extraor- 
dinary an effect, the public, we suppose, has made up 
its mind. To compare it with the masterpieces of the 
Attic stage, with the great English dramas of the time 25 
of Elizabeth, or even the productions of Schiller's man- 
hood, would be absurd indeed ; yet it contains excellent 
dialogue and declamation, and, among plays fashioned 
on the French model, must be allowed to rank high, — 
not indeed with " Athalie " or " Saul," but, we think^ 



158 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS.' 

not below " Cinna," and certainly above any other Eng- 
lish tragedy of the same school ; above many of the plays 
of Corneille ; above many of the plays of Voltaire and 
Alfieri, and above some plays of Racine. Be this as it 

5 may, we have little doubt that " Cato " did as much as 
the Tatlers, Spectators, and Freeholders united, to raise 
Addison's fame among his contemporaries. 

The modesty and good nature of the successful dram- 
atist had tamed even the malignity of faction. But 

10 literary envy, it should seem, is a fiercer passion than 
party spirit. It was by a zealous Whig that the fiercest 
attack on the Whig tragedy -was made. John Dennis 
published " Remarks on Cato," which were written with 
some acuteness and with much coarseness and asperity. 

15 Addison neither defended himself nor retaliated. On 
many points he had an excellent defence, and nothing 
would have been easier than to retaliate ; for Dennis had 
written bad odes, bad tragedies, bad comedies : he had, 
moreover, a larger share than most men of those infirmi- 

20 ties and eccentricities which excite laughter ; and Addi- 
son's power of turning either an absurd book or an 
absurd man into ridicule was unrivalled. Addison, how- 
ever, serenely conscious of his superiority, looked with 
pity on his assailant, whose temper, naturally irritable 

25 and gloomy, had been soured by want, by controversy, 
and by literary failures. 

But among the young candidates for Addison's favor 
there was one distinguished by talents from the rest, and 
distinguished, we fear, not less by malignity and insin- 
cerity. Pope was only twenty-five ; but his powers had 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 159 

expanded to their full maturity, and his best poem, the 
■* Eape of the Lock," had recently been published. Of 
his genius Addison had always expressed high admira- 
tion. But Addison had early discerned, what might, 
indeed, have been discerned by an eye less penetrating 5 
than bis, that the diminutive, crooked, sickly boy was 
eager to revenge himself on society for the unkindness 
of nature. In the Spectator the " Essay on Criti- 
cism " had been praised with cordial warmth ; but a 
gentle hint had been added that the writer of so excel- 10 
lent a poem would have done well to avoid ill-natured 
personalities. Pope, though evidently more galled by 
the censure than gratified by the praise, returned thanks 
for the admonition, and promised to profit by it. The 
two writers continued to exchange civilities, counsel, and 15 
small good offices. Addison publicly extolled Pope's 
miscellaneous pieces, and Pope furnished Addison with a 
prologue. This did not last long. Pope hated Dennis, 
whom he had injured without provocation. The appear- 
ance of the " Remarks on Cato " gave the irritable 20 
poet an opportunity of venting his malice under the 
show of friendship ; and such an opportunity could not 
but be welcomed to a nature which was implacable in 
enmity,, and which always preferred the tortuous to the 
straight path. He published, accordingly, the " Narra- 25 
tive of the Frenzy of John Dennis." But Pope had 
mistaken his powers. He was a great master of invec- 
tive and sarcasm ; he could dissect a character in terse 
and sonorous couplets, brilliant with antithesis ; but of 
dramatic talent he was altogether destitute. If he had 



160 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

written a lampoon on Dennis, such as that on Atticus 
or that on Sporus, the old grumbler would have been 
crushed. But Pope writing dialogue resembled — to 
borrow Horace's imagery and his own — a wolf, which, 

5 instead of biting, should take to kicking, or a monkey 
which should try to sting. The Narrative is utterly 
contemptible. Of argument there is not even the show, 
and the jests are such as, if they were introduced into 
a farce, would call forth the hisses of the shilling 

10 gallery. Dennis raves about the drama, and the nurse 
thinks that he is calling for a dram. ''There is," he 
cries, "no peripetia in the tragedy, no change of fortune, 
no change at all." " Pray, good sir, be not angry," says 
the old woman, "I'll fetch change." This is not exactly 

15 the pleasantry of Addison. 

There can be no doubt that Addison saw through this 
officious zeal, and felt himself deeply aggrieved by it. 
So foolish and spiteful a pamphlet could do him no good, 
and, if he were thought to have any hand in it, must do 

20 him harm. Gifted with incomparable powers of ridicule, 
he had never, even in self-defence, used those powers 
inhumanly or uncourteously ; and he was not disposed 
to let others make his fame and his interests a pretext 
under which they might commit outrages from which 

25 he had himself constantly abstained. He accordingly 
declared that he had no concern in the Narrative, 
that he disapproved of it, and that if he answered the 
Remarks, he would answer them like a gentleman ; 
and he took care to communicate this to Dennis. Pope 
was bitterly mortified, and to this transaction we are 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 161 

inclined to ascribe the hatred with which he ever after 
regarded Addison. 

In September, 1713, the Guardian ceased to appear. 
Steele had gone mad about politics. A general election 
had just taken place : he had been chosen member for 5 
Stockbridge, and he fully expected to play a first part in 
Parliament. The immense success of the Tatler and 
Spectator had turned his head. He had been the editor 
of both those papers, and was not aware how entirely 
they owed their influence and popularity to the genius lO 
of his friend. His spirits, always violent, were now 
excited by vanity, ambition, and faction, to such a pitch 
that he every day committed some offence against good 
sense and good taste. All the discreet and moderate 
members of his own party regretted and condemned his 15 
folly. " I am in a thousand troubles," Addison wrote, 
" about poor Dick, and wish that his zeal for the public 
may not be ruinous to himself. But he has sent me 
word that he is determined to go on, and that any ad- 
vice I may give him in this particular will have no 20 
weight with him." 

Steele set up a political paper called the Englishman, 
which, as it was not supported by contributions from 
Addison, completely failed. By this work, by some 
other writings of the same kind, and by the airs which 25 
he gave himself at the first meeting of the new Parlia- 
ment, he made the Tories so angry that they determined 
to expel him. The Whigs stood by him gallantly, but 
were unable to save him. The vote of expulsion was 
regarded by all dispassionate men as a tyrannical exer- 



162 macaulay's essays. 

cise of the power of the majority. But Steele's violence 
and folly, though they by no means justified the steps 
which his enemies took, had completely disgusted his 
friends ; nor did he ever regain the place which he had 

5 held in the public estimation. 

Addison about this time conceived the design of add- 
ing an eighth volume to the Sjyectator. In June, 1714, 
the first number of the new series appeared, and during 
about six months three papers were published weekly. 

10 Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between 
the Englishman and the eighth volume of the Spec- 
tator, between Steele without Addison and Addison 
without Steele. The Englishman is forgotten : the 
eighth volume of the Spectator contains, perhaps, the 

15 finest essays, both serious and playful, in the English 
language. 

Before this volume was completed, the death of Anne 
produced an entire change in the administration of pub- 
lic affairs. The blow fell suddenly. It found the Tory 

20 party distracted by internal feuds, and unprepared for 
any great effort. Harley had just been disgraced. 
Bolingbroke, it was supposed, would be the chief minis- 
ter. But the Queen was on her death-bed before the 
white staff had been given, and her last public act was 

25 to deliver it with a feeble hand to the Duke of Shrews- 
bury. The emergency produced a coalition between all 
sections of public men who were attached to the Protes- 
tant succession. George the Pirst was proclaimed with- 
out opposition. A council, in wliich the leading Whigs 
had seatSj took the direction of affairs till the new King 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 163 

should arrive. The first act of the Lord Justices was to 
appoint Addison their secretary. 

There is an idle tradition that he was directed to pre- 
pare a letter to the King, that he could not satisfy him- 
self as to the style of this composition, and that the 5 
Lords Justices called in a clerk, who at once did what was 
wanted. It is not strange that a story so flattering 
to mediocrity should be popular ; and we are sorry to 
deprive dunces of their consolation. But the truth must 
be told. It was well observed by Sir James Mackintosh, 10 
whose knowledge of these times was unequalled, that 
Addison never, in any official document, affected wit or 
eloquence, and that his despatches are, without excep- 
tion, remarkable for unpretending simplicity. Every- 
body who knows with what ease Addison's finest essays 15 
were produced, must be convinced that, if well-turned 
phrases had been wanted, he would have had no diffi- 
culty in finding them. We are, however, inclined to 
believe, that the story is not absolutely without a foun- 
dation. It may well be that Addison did not know, till 20 
he had consulted experienced clerks who remembered 
the times when William the Third was absent on the 
Continent, in what form a letter from the Council of 
Regency to the King ought to be drawn. We think it 
very likely that the ablest statesmen of our time. Lord 25 
John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerstou, for 
example, would, in similar circumstances, be found quite 
as ignorant. Every office has some little mysteries 
which the dullest man may learn with a little attention, 
and which the greatest man cannot possibly know by 



164 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

intuition. One paper must be signed by the chief of 
the department ; another by his deputy : to a third the 
royal sign-manual is necessary. One communication is 
to be registered, and another is not. One sentence must 

5 be in black ink, and another in red ink. If the ablest 
Secretary for Ireland were moved to the India Board, if 
the ablest President of the India Board were moved to 
the War Office, he would require instruction on points 
like these ; and we do not doubt that Addison required 

10 such instruction when he became, for the first time, 
Secretary to the Lords Justices. 

George the First took possession of his kingdom with- 
out opposition. A new ministry was formed, and a new 
Parliament favorable to the Whigs chosen. Sunderland 

15 was appointed Lord Lieutenant of Ireland ; and Addison 
again went to Dublin as Chief Secretary. 

At Dublin Swift resided ; and there Avas much specu- 
lation about the way in which the Dean and the Secre- 
tary would behave towards each other. The relations 

20 which existed between these remarkable men form an 
interesting and pleasing portion of literary history. 
They had early attached themselves to the same political 
party and to the same patrons. While Anne's Whig 
ministry was in power, the visits of Swift to London 

25 and the official residence of Addison in Ireland had 
given them opportunities of knowing each other. They 
were the two shrewdest observers of their age. But 
their observations on each other had led them to favor- 
able conclusions. Swift did full justice to the rare powers 
of conversation which were latent under the bashful 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 165 

deportment of Addison. Addison, on the other hand, 
discerned much good nature under the severe look and 
manner of Swift ; and, indeed, the Swift of 1708 and 
the Swift of 1738 were two very different men. 

But the paths of the two friends diverged widely. 5 
The Whig statesmen loaded Addison with solid benefits. 
They praised Swift, asked him to dinner, and did noth- 
ing more for him. His profession laid them under a 
difficulty. In the state they could not promote him ; 
and they had reason to fear that, by bestowing prefer- 10 
ment in the church on the author of the " Tale of a Tub," 
they might give scandal to the public, which had no 
high opinion of their orthodoxy. He did not make fair 
allowance for the difficulties which prevented Halifax 
and Somers from serving him, thought himself an ill- 15 
used man, sacrificed honor and consistency to revenge, 
joined the Tories, and became their most formidable 
champion. He soon found, however, that his old friends 
were less to blame than he had supposed. The dislike 
with which the Queen and the heads of the church 20 
regarded him was insurmountable ; and it was with the 
greatest difficulty that he obtained an ecclesiastical 
dignity of no great value, on condition of fixing his resi- 
dence in a country which he detested. 

Difference of political opinion had produced, not in- 25 
deed a quarrel, but a coolness between Swift and Addi- 
son. They at length ceased altogether to see each other. 
Yet there was between them a tacit compact like that 
between the hereditary guests in the Iliad. 



166 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

"EY)(^ea &' aXXr}Xii)v a}.iil>niQa koi hi hfiiXoV 
TloXXoi ftiv yap lixoi TpCit; xXfiToi r' iniKOvpoi, 
Kriiveiv, bv Kt 6(6i yf Trhpr] Ka'i iroaal Kiyeiw, 
HoXXoI 6' av 6ol 'Avoioi, iyalpifiev bv xe Sivrjai 



It is not strange that Addison, who calumniated and 
insulted nobody, should not have calumniated and in- 
sulted Swift. But it is remarkable that Swift, to whom 
neither genius nor virtue was sacred, and who generally 

5 seemed to find, like most other renegades, a peculiar 
pleasure in attacking old friends, should have shown so 
much respect and tenderness to Addison. 

Fortune had now changed. The accession of the 
house of Hanover had secured in England the liberties 

10 of the people, and in Ireland the dominion of the Protes- 
tant caste. To that caste Swift was more odious than 
any other man. He was hooted and even pelted in the 
streets of Dublin ; and could not venture to ride along 
the strand for his health without the attendance of 

15 armed servants. Many whom he had formerly served 
now libelled and insulted him. At this time Addison 
arrived. He had been advised not to show the smallest 
civility to the Dean of St. Patrick's. He had answered, 
with admirable spirit, that it might be necessary for 

20 men whose fidelity to their party was suspected, to hold 
no intercourse with political opponents ; but that one 
who had been a stead}^ Whig in the worst times might 
venture, when the good cause was triumphant, to shake 
hands with an old friend who was one of the vanquished 
Tories. His kindness was soothing to the proud and 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 167 

cruelly wounded spirit of Swift ; and the two great 
satirists resumed their habits of friendly intercourse. 

Those associates of Addison whose political opinions 
agreed with his shared his good fortune. He took Tick- 
ell with him to Ireland. He procured for Budgell a 5 
lucrative place in the same kingdom. Ambrose Phil- 
lipps was provided for in England. Steele had injured 
himself so much by his eccentricity and perverseness, 
that he obtained but a very small part of what he 
thought his due. He was, however, knighted ; he had 10 
a place in the household ; and he subsequently received 
other marks of favor from the court. 

Addison did not remain long in Ireland. In 1715 he 
quitted his secretaryship for a seat at the Board of 
Trade. In the same year his comedy of the " Drummer " 15 
was brought on the stage. The name of the author was 
not announced ; the piece was coldly received, and some 
critics have expressed a doubt whether it were really 
Addison's. To us the evidence, both external and inter- 
nal, seems decisive. It is not in Addison's best manner ; 20 
but it contains numerous passages which no other writer 
known to us could have produced. It was again per- 
formed after Addison's death, and, being known to be 
his, was loudly applauded. 

Towards the close of the year 1715, while the Eebel- 25 
lion was still raging in Scotland, Addison published the 
first number of a paper called the Freeholder. Among 
his political works the Freeholder is entitled to the first 
place. Even in the Spectator there are few serious 
papers nobler than the character of his friend Lord 



168 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

Somers, and certainly 'no satirical papers superior to 
those in which the Tory fox-hunter is introduced. This 
character is the original of Squire Western, and is 
drawn with all Fielding's force, and with a delicacy 

5 of which Fielding was altogether destitute. As none 
of Addison's works exhibit stronger marks of his gen- 
ius than the Freeholder, so none does more honor to his 
moral character. It is difficult to extol too highly the 
candor and humanity of a political writer whom even 

10 the excitement of civil war cannot hurry into unseemly 
violence. Oxford, it is well known, was then the strong- 
hold of Toryism. The High Street had been repeatedly 
lined with bayonets in order to keep down the disaf- 
fected gownsmen ; and traitors pursued by the messen- 

15 gers of the government had been concealed in the garrets 
of several colleges. Yet the admonition which, even 
under such circumstances, Addison addressed to the 
university, is singularly gentle, respectful, and even 
affectionate. Indeed, he could not find it in his heart 

20 to deal harshly even with imaginary persons. His fox- 
hunter, though ignorant, stupid, and violent, is at heart 
a good fellow, and is at last reclaimed by the clemency 
of the king. Steele was dissatisfied with his friend's 
moderation, and, though he acknowledged that the Free- 

25 holder was excellently written, complained that the min- 
istry played on a lute when it was necessary to blow the 
trumpet. He accordingly determined to execute a flour- 
ish after his own fashion, and tried to rouse the public 
spirit of the nation by means of a paper called the Toivn 
Talk, which is now as utterly forgotten as his English- 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. ^ 169 

man, as his Crisis, as his .Letter. to the Bailiff of Stock- 
bridge, as his Reader, in short, as everything that he 
wrote without the help of Addison. 

In the same year in which the ''Drummer" was acted, 
and in which the first numbers of the Freeholder ap- 5 
peared, the estrangement of Pope and Addison became 
complete. Addison had from the first seen that Pope 
was false and malevolent. Pope had discovered that 
Addison was jealous. The discovery was made in a 
strange manner. Pope had written the " Rape of the 10 
Lock," in two cantos, without supernatural machinery. 
These two cantos had been loudly applauded, and by 
none more loudly than by Addison. Then Pope thought 
of the Sylphs and Gnomes, Ariel, Momentilla, Crispissa, 
and Umbriel, and resolved to interweave the Rosicru- 15 
cian mythology with the original fabric. He asked 
Addison's advice. Addison said that the poem as it 
stood was a delicious little thing, and entreated Pope not 
to run the risk of marring what was so excellent in try- 
ing to mend it. Pope afterward declared that this insid- 20 
ious counsel first opened his eyes to the baseness of him 
who gave it. 

Now there can be no doubt that Pope's plan was most 
ingenious, and that he afterwards executed it with great 
skill and success. But does it necessarily follow that 25 
Addison's advice was bad? And if Addison's advice 
was bad, does it necessarily follow that it was given 
from bad motives ? If a friend were to ask us whether 
we would advise him to risk his all in a lottery of which 
the chances were ten .to one against him, we should do 



170 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

our best to dissuade him from running such a risk. 
Even if he were so lucky as to get the thirty thousand 
pound prize, we should not admit that we had counselled 
him ill ; and we should certainly think it the height of 

5 injustice in him to accuse us of having been actuated by 
malice. We think Addison's advice good advice. It 
rested on a sound principle, the result of long and wide 
experience. The general rule undoubtedly is that, when 
a successful work of imagination has been produced, it 

10 should not be recast. We cannot at this moment call 
to mind a single instance in which this rule has been 
transgressed with happy effect, except the instance of 
the " Eape of the Lock." Tasso recast his " Jerusalem." 
Akenside recast his •' Pleasures of the Imagination," and 

15 his " Epistle to Curio." Pope himself, emboldened no 
doubt by the success with which he had expanded and 
remodelled the "Rape of the Lock," made the same exper- 
iment on the "Dunciad." All these attempts failed. 
Who was to foresee that Pope would, once in his life, be 

20 able to do what he could not himself do twice, and what 
nobody else has ever done ? 

Addison's advice was good. But had it been bad, why 
should we pronounce it dishonest ? Scott tells us that 
one of his best friends predicted the failure of Waver- 

25 ley. Herder adjured Goethe not to take so unpromising 
a subject as Faust. Hume tried to dissuade Eobertson 
from writing the " History of Charles the Fifth." Nay, 
Pope himself was one of those who prophesied that 
" Cato " would never succeed on the stage, and advised 
Addison to print it without risking a representation. 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 171 

But Scott, Goethe, Eobertson, Addison, had the good 
sense and generosity to give their advisers credit for the 
best intentions. Pope's heart was not of the same kind 
with theirs. 

In 1715, while he was engaged in translating the 5 
Iliad, he met Addison at a coffee-house. Phillipps and 
Budgell were there ; but their sovereign got rid of them, 
and asked Pope to dine with him alone. After dinner, 
Addison said that he lay under a difficulty which he 
wished to explain. " Tickell," he said, "translated some lo 
time ago the first book of the Iliad. I have promised to 
look it over and correct it. I cannot, therefore, ask 
to see yours, for that would be double-dealing." Pope 
made a civil reply, and begged that his second book 
might have the advantage of Addison's revision. Addi- 15 
son readily agreed, looked over the second book, and sent 
it back with warm commendations. 

Tickell's version of the first book appeared soon after 
this conversation. In the preface, all rivalry was ear- 
nestly disclaimed. Tickell declared that he should not 20 
go on with the Iliad. That enterprise he should leave 
to powers which he admitted to be superior to his own. 
His only view, he said, in publishing this specimen was 
to bespeak the favor of the public to a translation of the 
Odyssey, in which he had made some progress. 25 

Addison, and Addison's devoted followers, pronounced 
both the versions good, but maintained that Tickell's 
had more of the original. The town gave a decided 
preference to Pope's. We do not think it worth while 
to settle such a question of precedence. Neither of the 



172 MACAULAY\S ESSAYS. 

rivals can be said to have translated the Iliad, unless 
indeed, the word translation be used in the sense which 
it bears in the " Midsummer Night's Dream." When 
Bottom makes his appearance with an ass's head instead 

5 of his own, Peter Quince exclaims, "Bless thee ! Bottom, 
bless thee ! thou art translated." In this sense, undoubt- 
edly, the readers of either Pope or Tickell may very 
properly exclaim, " Bless thee ! Homer ; thou art trans- 
lated indeed." 

10 Our readers will, we hope, agree with us in thinking 
that no man in Addison's situation could have acted 
more fairly and kindly, both towards Pope, and towards 
Tickell, than he appears to have done. But an odious 
suspicion had sprung up in the mind of Pope. He fan- 

15 cied, and he soon firmly believed, that there was a deep 
conspiracy against his fame and his fortunes. The 
work on which he had staked his reputation was to be 
depreciated. The subscription, on which rested his hopes 
of a competence, was to be defeated. With this view 

20 Addison had made a rival translation : Tickell had con- 
sented to father it ; and the wits of Button's had united 
to puff it. 

Is there any external evidence to support this grave 
accusation ? The answer is short. There is absolutely 

25 none. 

Was there any internal evidence which proved Addi- 
son to be the author of this version ? Was it a work 
which Tickell was incapable of producing ? Surely not. 
Tickell was a fellow of a college at Oxford, and must be 
supposed to have been able to construe the Iliad ; and 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 173 

he was a better versifier than his friend. We are not 
aware that Pope pretended to have discovered any turns 
of expression peculiar to Addison. Had such turns of 
expression been discovered, they would be sufficiently 
accounted for by supposing Addison to have corrected 5 
his friend's lines, as he owned that he had done. 

Is there anything in the character of the accused per- 
sons which makes the accusation probable ? We answer 
confidently — nothing. Tickell was long after this time 
described by Pope himself as a very fair and worthy 10 
man. Addison had been, during many years, before the 
public. Literary rivals, political opponents, had kept 
their eyes on him. But neither envy nor faction, in 
their utmost rage, had ever imputed to him a single 
deviation from the laws of honor and of social morality. 15 
Had he been indeed a man meanly jealous of fame, and 
capable of stooping to base and wicked acts for the pur- 
pose of injuring his competitors, would his vices have 
remained latent so long ? He was a writer of tragedy : 
had he ever injured Rowe ? He was a writer of comedy : 20 
had he not done ample justice to Congreve, and given 
valuable help to Steele ? He was a pamphleteer : have 
not his good nature and generosity been acknowledged 
by Swift, his rival in fame and his adversary in politics ? 

That Tickell should have been guilty of a villany 25 
seems to us highly improbable. That Addison should 
have been guilty of a villany seems to us highly im- 
probable. But that these two men should have conspired 
together to commit a villany seems to us improbable in a 
tenfold degree. All that is known to us of their inter- 



174 LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 

course tends to prove, that it was not the intercourse of 
two accomplices in crime. These are some of the lines in 
which Tickell pours forth his sorrow over the coffin of 
Addison : — 



" Or dost thou warn poor mortals left behind, 
A task well suited to thy gentle mintl ? 
Oh, if sometimes thy spotless form descend, 
To me thine aid, thou guardian genius, lend. 
When rage misguides me, or when fear alarms, 
When pain distresses, or wlien pleasure charms, 
In silent whisperings purer thoughts impart. 
And turn from ill a frail and feeble heart ; 
Lead through the paths thy virtue trod before. 
Till bliss shall join, nor death can part us more." 



5 In what words, we should like to know, did this guard- 
ian genius invite his pupil to join in a plan such as the 
editor of the Satirist would hardly dare to propose to 
the editor of the Age ? 

We do not accuse Pope of bringing an accusation 

10 which he knew to be false. We have not the smallest 
doubt that he believed it to be true ; and the evidence 
on which he believed it he found in his own bad heart. 
His own life was one long series of tricks, as mean and 
as malicious as that of which he suspected Addison 

15 and Tickell. He was all stiletto and mask. To injure, 
to insult, and to save himself from the consequences of 
injury and insult by lying and equivocating, was the 
habit of his life. He published a lampoon on the Duke 
of Chandos ; he was taxed with it ; and he lied and 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 176 

equivocated. He published a lampoon on Aaron Hill ; 
he was taxed with it ; and he lied and equivocated. He 
published a still fouler lampoon on Lady Mary Wortley 
Montague ; he was taxed with it ; and he lied with more 
than usual effrontery and vehemence. He puffed him- 5 
self and abused his enemies under feigned names. He 
robbed himself of his own letters, and then raised the 
hue and cry after them. Besides his frauds of malig- 
nity, of fear, of interest, and of vanity, there were frauds 
which he seems to have committed from love of fraud 10 
alone. He had a habit of stratagem, a pleasure in out- 
witting all who came near him. Whatever his object 
might be, the indirect road to it was that which he pre- 
ferred. For Bolingbroke, Pope undoubtedly felt as 
much love and veneration as it was in his nature to feel 15 
for any human being. Yet Pope was scarcely dead when 
it was discovered that, from no motive except the mere 
love of artifice, he had been guilty of an act of gross 
perfidy to Bolingbroke. 

Nothing was more natural than that such a man as 20 
this should attribute to others that which he felt within 
himself. A plain, probable, coherent explanation is 
frankly given to him. He is certain that it is all a 
romance. A line of conduct scrupulously fair, and even 
friendly, is pursued towards him. He is convinced that 25 
it is merely a cover for a vile intrigue by which he is to 
be disgraced and ruined. It is vain to ask him for 
proofs. He has none, and wants none, except those 
which he carries in his own bosom. 

Whether Pope's malignity at length provoked Addison 



176 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

to retaliate for the first and last time, cannot now be 
known with certainty. We have only Pope's story, 
which runs thus. A pamphlet appeared containing some 
reflections which stung Pope to the quick. What those 

5 reflections were, and whether they were reflections of 
which he had a right to complain, we have now no 
means of deciding. The Earl of Warwick, a foolish 
and vicious lad, who regarded Addison with the feelings 
with which such lads generally regard their best friends, 

10 told Pope, truly or falsely, that this pamphlet had been 
written by Addison's direction. When we consider 
what a tendency stories have to grow, in passing even 
from one honest man to another honest man, and when 
we consider that to the name of honest man neither 

15 Pope nor the Earl of Warwick had a claim, we are not 
disposed to attach much importance to this anecdote. 

It is certain, however, that Pope was furious. He 
had already sketched the character of Atticus in prose. 
In his anger he turned this prose into the brilliant and 

20 energetic lines which everybody knows by heart, or 
ought to know by heart, and sent them to Addison. 
One charge which Pope has enforced with great skill is 
probably not without foundation. Addison was, we are 
inclined to believe, too fond of presiding over a circle of 

25 humble friends. Of the other imputations which these 
famous lines are intended to convey, scarcely one has 
ever been proved to be just, and some are certainly false. 
That Addison was not in the habit of " damning with 
faint praise " appears from innumerable passages in his 
writings, and from none more than from those in which 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 177 

he mentions Pope. And it is not merely unjust, but 
ridiculous, to describe a man who made the fortune of 
almost every one of his intimate friends, as "so obliging 
that he ne'er obliged." 

That Addison felt the sting of Pope's satire keenly, 5 
we cannot doubt. That he was conscious of one of the 
weaknesses with which he was reproached is highly 
probable. But his heart, we firmly believe, acquitted 
him of the gravest part of the accusation. He acted 
like himself. As a satirist he was, at his own weapons, lo 
more than Pope's match, and he would have been at no 
loss for topics. A distorted and diseased body, tenanted 
by a yet more distorted and diseased mind ; spite and 
envy thinly disguised by sentiments as benevolent and 
noble as those which Sir Peter Teazle admired in Mr. 15 
Joseph Surface ; a feeble, sickly licentiousness ; an odi- 
ous love of filthy and noisome images ; these were things 
which a genius less powerful than that to which we 
owe the Spectator could easily have held up to the mirth 
and hatred of mankind. Addison had, moreover, at his 20 
command, other means of vengeance which a bad man 
would not have scrupled to use. He was powerful in the 
state. Pope was a Catholic ; and, in those times, a 
minister would have found it easy to harass the most 
innocent Catholic by innumerable petty vexations. 25 
Pope, near twenty years later, said that " through the 
lenity of the government alone he could live with com- 
fort." '' Consider," he exclaimed, " the injury that a 
man of high rank and credit may do to a private person, 
under penal laws and many other disadvantages." It is 



178 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

pleasing to reflect that the only revenge which Addison 
took was to insert in the Freeliolder a warm encomium on 
the translation of the Iliad, and to exhort all lovers of 
learning to put down their names as subscribers. There 

5 could be no doubt, he said, from the specimens already 
published, that the masterly hand of Pope would do as 
much for Homer as Dryden had done for Virgil. From 
that time to the end of his life, he always treated Pope, 
by Pope's own acknowledgment, with justice, Friend- 

10 ship was, of course, at an end. 

One reason which induced the Earl of Warwick to play 
the ignominious part of talebearer on this occasion, may 
have been his dislike of the marriage which was about 
to take place between his mother and Addison. The 

15 Countess Dowager, a daughter of the old and honorable 
family of the Middletons of Chirk, a family which, in 
any country but ours, would be called noble, resided at 
Holland House. Addison had, during some years, occu- 
pied at Chelsea a small dwelling, once the abode of Nell 

20 Gwynn. Chelsea is now a district of London, and Hol- 
land House may be called a town residence. But, in tlie 
days of Anne and George the First, milkmaids and 
sportsmen wandered between green hedges, and over 
fields bright with daisies, from Kensington almost to the 

25 shore of the Thames. Addison and Lady "Warwick were 
country neighbors, and became intimate friends. The 
great wit and scholar tried to allure the young lord from 
the fashionable amusements of beating watchmen, break- 
ing windows, and rolling women in hogsheads down Hol- 
born Hill, to the study of letters and the practice of 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 179 

virtue. These well-meant exertions did little good, 
however, either to the disciple or to the master. Lord 
Warwick grew up a rake ; and Addison fell in love. 
The mature beauty of the countess has been celebrated 
by poets in language which, after a very large allowance 5 
has been made for flattery, would lead us to believe that 
she was a fine woman ; and her rank doubtless height- 
ened her attractions. The courtship was long. The 
hopes of the lover appear to have risen and fallen with 
the fortunes of his party. His attachment was at length 10 
matter of such notoriety that, when he visited Ireland 
for the last time, Rowe addressed some consolatory 
verses to the Chloe of Holland House. It strikes us as a 
little strange that, in these verses, Addison should be 
called Lycidas, a name of singular evil omen for a swain 15 
just about to cross St. George's Channel. 

At length Chloe capitulated. Addison was indeed 
able to treat with her on equal terms. He had reason to 
expect preferment even higher than that which he had 
attained. He had inherited the fortune of a brother 20 
who had died Governor of Madras. He had purchased 
an estate in Warwickshire, and had been welcomed to 
his domain in very tolerable verse by one of the neigh- 
boring squires, the poetical fox-hunter, William Somer- 
vile. In August, 1716, the newspapers announced that 25 
Joseph Addison, Esquire, famous for many excellent 
works, both in verse and prose, had espoused the Countess 
Dowager of Warwick. 

He now fixed his abode at Holland House, a house 
which can boast of a greater number of inmates distin- 



180 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

guished in political and literary history than any other 
private dwelling in England. His portrait still hangs 
there. The features are pleasing; the complexion is 
remarkably fair ; but, in the expression we trace rather 

5 the gentleness of his disposition than the force and keen- 
ness of his intellect. 

Not long after his marriage he reached the height of 
civil greatness. The Whig Government had, during 
some time, been torn by internal dissensions. Lord 

10 Townshend led one section of the Cabinet, Lord Sunder- 
land the other. At length, in the spring of 1717, Sun- 
derland triumphed. Townshend retired from office, and 
was accompanied by Walpole and Cowper. Sunderland 
proceeded to reconstruct the Ministry ; and Addison was 

15 appointed Secretary of State. It is certain that the 
seals were pressed upon him, and were at first declined 
by him. Men equally versed in official business might 
easily have been found ; and his colleagues knew that 
they could not expect assistance from him in debate. 

20 He owed his elevation to his popularity, to his stainless 
probity, and to his literary fame. 

But scarcely had Addison entered the Cabinet when 
his health began to fail. From one serious attack he 
recovered in the autumn; and his recovery was cele- 

25 brated in Latin verses, worthy of his own pen, by Vin- 
cent Bourne, who was then at Trinity College, Cambridge. 
A relapse soon took place ; and, in the following spring, 
Addison was prevented by a severe asthma from dis- 
charging the duties of his post. He resigned it, and was 
succeeded by his friend Craggs, a young man whose 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 181 

natural parts, though little improved by cultivation, 
were quick and showy, whose graceful person and win- 
ning manners had made him generally acceptable in so- 
ciety, and who, if he had lived, would probably have 
been the most formidable of all the rivals of Walpole, 5 

As yet there was no Joseph Hume. The ministers, 
therefore, were able to bestow on Addison a retiring 
pension of fifteen hundred pounds a year. In what form 
this pension was given we are not told by the biogra- 
phers, and have not time to inquire. But it is certain that 10 
Addison did not vacate his seat in the House of Commons, 

Rest of mind and body seems to have re-established 
his health ; and he thanked God, with cheerful piety, for 
having set him free both from his office and from his 
asthma. Many years seemed to be before him, and he 15 
meditated many works, a tragedy on the death of Socra- 
tes, a translation of the Psalms, a treatise on the evi- 
dences of Christianity. Of this last performance, a part, 
which we could well spare, has come down to us. 

But the fatal complaint soon returned, and gradually 20 
prevailed against all the resources of medicine. It is 
melancholy to think that the last months of such a life 
should have been overclouded both by domestic and by 
political vexations. A tradition which began early, 
which has been generally received, and to which we have 25 
nothing to oppose, has represented his wife as an arro- 
gant and imperious woman. It is said that, till his 
health failed him, he was glad to escape from the Countess 
Dowager and her magnificent dining-room, blazing with 
the gilded devices of the house of Rich, to some tavern 



182 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

where he could enjoy a laugh, a talk about Virgil and 
Boileau, and a bottle of claret with the friends of his 
happier days. All those friends, however, were not left 
to him. Sir Eichard Steele had been gradually estranged 

5 by various causes. He considered himself as one who, 
in evil times, had braved martyrdom for his political 
principles, and demanded, when the Whig party was 
triumphant, a large compensation for what he had suf- 
fered when it was militant. The Whig leaders took a 

10 very different view of his claims. They thought that 
he had, by his own petulance and folly, brought them as 
well as himself into trouble, and though they did not 
absolutely neglect him, doled out favors to him with a 
sparing hand. It was natural that he should be angry ' 

15 with them, and especially angry with Addison. But 
what above all seems to have disturbed Sir Richard, was 
the elevation of Tickell, who, at thirty, was made by 
Addison Undersecretary of State ; while the editor of the 
Tatler and Spectator, the author of the " Crisis," the mem- 

20 ber for Stockbridge who had been persecuted for firm 
adherence to the house of Hanover, was, at near fifty, 
forced, after many solicitations and complaints, to con- 
tent himself witli a share in the patent of Drury Lane 
Theatre. Steele himself says, in his celebrated letter to 

25 Congreve, that Addison, by his preference of Tickell, 
'' incurred the warmest resentment of other gentlemen ; " 
and everything seems to indicate that, of those resent- 
ful gentlemen, Steele was himself one. 

While poor Sir Richard was brooding over what he 
considered as Addison's uukinduess, a new cause of 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON, 183 

quarrel arose. The Whig party, already divided against 
itself, was rent by a new schism. The celebrated bill 
for limiting the number of peers had been brought in. 
The proud Duke of Somerset, first in rank of all the 
nobles whose origin permitted them to sit in Parliament, 5 
was the ostensible author of the measure. But it was 
supported, and, in truth, devised by the Prime Minister. 
We are satisfied that the bill was most pernicious ; 
and we fear that the motives which induced Sunderland 
to frame it were not honorable to him. But we cannot 10 
deny that it was supported by many of the best and 
wisest men of that age. Nor was this strange. The 
royal prerogative had, within the memory of the genera- 
tion then in the vigor of life, been so grossly abused, 
that it was still regarded with a jealousy which, when 15 
the peculiar situation of the House of Brunswick is con- 
sidered, may perhaps be called immoderate. The par- 
ticular prerogative of creating peers had, in the opinion 
of the Whigs, been grossly abused by Queen Anne's last 
Ministry ; and even the Tories admitted that her majesty 20 
in swamping, as it has since been called, the Upper 
House, had done what only an extreme case could justify. 
The theory of the English constitution, according to 
many high authorities, was that three independent 
powers, the sovereign, the nobility, and the commons, 25 
ought constantly to act as checks on each other. If this 
theory were sound, it seemed to follow that to put one 
of these powers under the absolute control of the other 
two, was absurd. But if the number of peers were un- 
limited, it could not well be denied that the Upper 



184 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS 

House was under the absolute control of the Crown and 
the Commons, and was indebted- only to their modera- 
tion for any power which it might be suffered to retain. 
Steele took part with the Opposition, Addison with 

5 the ministers. Steele, in a paper called the Plebeian, 
vehemently attacked the bill. Sunderland called for 
help on Addison, and Addison obeyed the call. In a 
paper called the Old Whig, he answered, and indeed 
refuted Steele's arguments. It seems to us that the 

10 premises of both the controversialists were unsound ; 
that, on those premises, Addison reasoned well and Steele 
ill, and that consequently Addison brought out a false 
conclusion, while Steele blundered upon the truth. In 
style, in wit, and in politeness, Addison maintained his 

15 superiority, though the Old Whig is by no means one of 
his happiest performances. 

At first, both the anonymous opponents observed the 
laws of propriety. But at length Steele so far forgot 
himself as to throw an odious imputation on the morals , 

20 of the chiefs of the administration. Addison replied 
with severity, but, in our opinion, with less severity 
than was due to so grave an offence against morality 
and decorum ; nor did he, in his just anger, forget for 
a moment the laws of good taste and good breeding. 

25 One calumny which has been often repeated, and never 
yet contradicted, it is our duty to expose. It is asserted 
in the " Biographia Britannica," that Addison designated 
Steele as " little Dicky." This assertion was repeated 
by Johnson, who had never seen the Old Whig, and was 
therefore excusable. It has also been repeated by Miss 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 185 

Aikin, who has seen the Old Whig, and for whom there- 
fore there is less excuse. Now, it is true that the words 
<' little Dicky" occur in the Old Whig, and that Steele's 
name was Richard, It is equally true that the words 
" little Isaac" occur in the "Duenna," and that Newton's 5 
name was Isaac. But we confidently affirm that Addi- 
son's little Dicky had no more to do with Steele, than 
Sheridan's little Isaac with Kewton. If we apply the 
words "little Dicky "to Steele, we deprive a very lively 
and ingenious passage, not only of all its wit, but of all 10 
its meaning. Little Dicky was the nickname of Henry 
Norris, an actor of remarkably small stature, but of 
great humor, who played the usurer Gomez, then a most 
popular part, in Dryden's " Spanish Friar." 

The merited reproof which Steele had received, though 15 
softened by some kind and courteous expressions, galled 
him bitterly. He replied with little force and great 
acrimony ; but no rejoinder appeared. Addison was fast 
hastening to his grave ; and had, we may well suppose, 
little disposition to prosecute a quarrel with an old friend. 20 
His complaint had terminated in dropsy. He bore up 
long and manfully. But at length he abandoned all 
hope, dismissed his physicians, and calmly prepared 
himself to die. 

His works he intrusted to the care of Tickell, and 25 
dedicated them a very few days before his death to 
Craggs, in a letter written with the sweet and graceful 
eloquence of a Saturday's Spectator: In this, his last 
composition, he alluded to his approaching end in words 
so manly, so cheerful, and so tender, that it is difficult 



186 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

to read them without tears. At the same time he ear- 
nestly recommended the interests of Tickell to the care 
of Craggs. 

Within a few hours of the time at which this d^dica- 

5 tion was written, Addison sent to beg Gay, who was then 
living by his wits about town, to come to Holland House. 
Gay went, and Avas received with great kindness. To 
his amazement his forgiveness Avas implored by the dying 
man. Poor Gay, the most good-natured and simple of 

10 mankind, could not imagine what he had to forgive. 
There was, however, some wrong, the remembrance of 
which weighed on Addison's mind, and which he declared 
himself anxious to repair. He was in a state of extreme 
exhaustion ; and the parting was doubtless a friendly 

15 one on both sides. Gay supposed that some plan to 
serve him had been in agitation at Court, and had been 
frustrated by Addison's influence. Nor is this improb- 
able. Gay had paid assiduous court to the royal family. 
But in the Queen's days he had been the eulogist of 

20 Bolingbroke, and was still connected with many Tories. 
It is not strange that Addison, while heated by conflict, 
should have felt himself justified in obstructing the pre- 
ferment of one whom he might regard as a political 
enemy. Neither is it strange that, when reviewing his 

25 whole life, and earnestly scrutinizing all his motives, he 
should think that he had acted an unkind and ungener- 
ous part, in using his power against a distressed man of 
letters, who was as harmless and as helpless as a child. 

One inference may be drawn from this anecdote. It 
appears that Addison, on his death-bed, called himself to 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 187 

a strict account, and was not at ease till he had asked 
pardon for an injury which it was not even suspected 
that he had committed, for an injury which would have 
caused' disquiet only to a very tender conscience. Is it 
not then reasonable to infer that, if he had really been 5 
guilty of forming a base conspiracy against the fame and 
fortunes of a rival, he would have expressed some re- 
morse for so serious a crime ? But it is unnecessary to 
multiply arguments and evidence for the defence, when 
there is neither argument nor evidence for the accusa- lo 
tion. 

The last moments of Addison were perfectly serene. 
His interview with his son-in-law is universally known. 
" See," he said, " how a Christian can die." The piety 
of Addison was, in truth, of a singularly cheerful charac- 15 
ter. The feeling which predominates in all his devo- 
tional writings is gratitude. God was to him the allwise 
and allpowerful friend who had watched over his cradle 
with more than maternal tenderness ; who had listened 
to his cries before they could form themselves in prayer ; 20 
who had preserved his youth from the snares of vice ; 
who had made his cup run over with worldly bless- 
ings ; who had doubled the value of those blessings by be- 
stowing a thankful heart to ejijoy them, and dear friends 
to partake them ; who had rebuked the waves of the 25 
Ligurian gulf, had purified the autumnal air of the Cam- 
pagna, and had restrained the avalanches of Mont Cenis. 
Of the Psalms, his favorite was that which represents the 
Euler of all things under the endearing image of a shep- 
herd, whose crook guides the flock safe, through gloomy 



188 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

and desolate glens, to meadows well watered and rich 
with herbage. On that goodness to which he ascribed 
all the happiness of his life, he relied in the hour of 
death with the love which casteth out fear. He died on 
5 the seventeenth of June, 1719. He had just entered on 
his forty-eiglath year. 

His body lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and 
was borne thence to the Abbey at dead of night. The 
choir sang a funeral hymn. Bishop Atterbury, one of 

10 those Tories who had loved and honored the most accom- 
plished of the Whigs, met the corpse, and led the proces- 
sion by torchlight, round the shrine of Saint Edward 
and the graves of the Plantagenets, to tlie Chapel of 
Henry the Seventh. On the north side of that chapel, 

15 in the vault of the house of Albemarle, the coffin of 
Addison lies next to the coffin of Montague. Yet a few 
months; and the same mourners passed again along the 
same aisle. The same sad anthem was again chanted. 
The same vault was again opened ; and the coffin of 

20 Craggs was placed close to the coffin of Addison. 

Many tributes were paid to the memory of Addison ; 
but one alone is now remembered. Tickell bewailed his 
friend in an elegy which would do honor to the greatest 
name in our literature, and which unites the energy and 

25 magnificence of Dryden to the tenderness and purity of 
Cowper. This fine poem was prefixed to a superb edi- 
tion of Addison's works, which was published in 1721, 
by subscription. The names of the subscribers proved 
how widely his fame had been spread. That his country- 
men should be eager to possess his writings, even in a 



LIFE AND WRITINGS OF ADDISON. 189 

costly form, is not wonderful. But it is wonderful that, 
though English literature was then little studied on the 
continent, Spanish grandees, Italian prelates, marshals 
of France, should be found in the list. Among the most 
remarkable names are those of the Queen of Sweden, 5 
of Prince Eugene, of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, of 
the Dukes of Parma, Modena, and Guastalla, of the 
Doge of Genoa, of the Eegent Orleans, and of Cardinal 
Dubois. We ought to add that this edition, though 
eminently beautiful, is in some important points defect- 10 
ive ; nor, indeed, do we yet possess a complete collection 
of Addison's writings. 

It is strange that neither his opulent and noble widow, 
nor any of his powerful and attached friends, should 
have thought of placing even a simple tablet, inscribed 15 
with his name, on the walls of the Abbey. It was not till 
three generations had laughed and wept over his pages, 
that the omission was supplied by the public veneration. 
At length, in our own time, his image, skilfully graven, 
appeared in Poet's Corner. It represents him, as we 20 
can conceive him, clad in his dressing-gown, and freed 
from his wig, stepping from his parlor at Chelsea into 
his trim little garden, with the account of the Ever- 
lasting Club, or the Loves of Hilpa and Shalum, just 
finished for the next day's Spectator, in his hand. Such 25 
a mark of national respect was due to the unsullied 
statesman, to the accomplished scholar, to the master of 
pure English eloquence, to the consummate painter of 
life and maners. It was due, above all, to the great 
satirist, who alone knew how to use ridicule without 



190 MACAULAY'S ESSAYS. 

abusing it ; who, without iufiictiiig a wound, effected a 
great social reform, ai\d who reconciled wit and virtue, 
after a long and disastrous separation, during which 
wit had been led astray lay profligacy, and virtue by 
fanaticism. 



Ef)e ^tutients' .Scries of lEnslisj) Classics- 

Coleridge's Ancient Mariner 3octs. 

A Ballad Book 54 . . 

Edited by Katharine Lee Bates, Welleslqy College. 

Matthew Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum 30 .. 

Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration 30 .. 

Milton, LjTics 35 .. 

Edited by Louise Manning Hodgkins. 

Introduction to the Writings of John Ruskin 54 . . 

Macaulay's Essay on Lord Clive 42.. 

Edited by Vida D. Scudder, Wellesley College. 

George Eliot's Silas Marner . . 42.. 

Scott's Marmion 42 .. 

Edited by Mary Harriott Norris, Instructor, New York. 
Sir Roger de Coverley Papers from The Spectator . . . . 42 .. 

Edited by A. S. Roe, Worcester, Mass. 
Macaulay's Second Essay on the Earl of Chatham . . . . 42 .. 

Edited by W. W, Curtis, High School, Pawtucket, R.I. 
Johnson's History of Rasselas 42 .. 

Edited by Fred N. Scott, University of Michigan. 
Joan of Arc and Other Selections from De Quincey . . . . 42 .. 

Edited by Henry H. Belfield, Chicago Manual Training School. 
Carlyle's The Diamond Necklace 42 .. 

Edited by W. F. Mozier, High School, Ottawa, 111. 
Macaulay's Essays on Milton and Addison 42 .. 

Edited by James Chalmers, Ohio State University. 
Lays of Ancient Rome [Nearly reaify] 

Edited by Viola V. Price, Southwest Kansas College. 
Selections from the Speeches of Henry Clay . . [IVearly ready] 

Edited by Charles H. Raymond, Lawrenceville School. 
Scott's Lady of the Lake [IVear/y ready] 

Edited by James Arthur Tufts, Phillips Exeter Academy. 
Charles Sumner's True Grandeur of Nations . . [M'ear/y ready] 

Edited by Geo. L. Maris, Friends' Central School, Philadelphia. 
Selected Orations and Speeches .... [JVearly ready] 

Edited by C. A. Whiting, University of Utah. 

Several others are in preparation, and all are substantially bound in cloth. 

LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN, Publishers, 

BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. 



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